Ferguson protesters weaponized games to shut down streets as civil disobedience

Evidence

One example was called They Think It’s a Game. DeRay McKesson, a Bowdoin College alum who came to Ferguson after Michael Brown’s death, and Kayla Reed, an organizer for the Organization of Black Struggle, came up with the idea. One of the organizers asked what are the chances they think what the protesters are doing is a game—that it’s a joke? “If they think it’s a game, let’s actually shut it down by playing games,” Netta recalled. “Hopscotch, double Dutch, Backleg, anything you could play out in the street…And shut down all of the corridors because [we’re] playing games.” It was brilliant. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 589

Categorization

• CANDY: Hopscotch and double Dutch as protest tactics is exactly the kind of surprising, tweetable detail that lands on its own.
• SEED: The tactical inversion — embracing the dismissive label ‘it’s a game’ and weaponizing it — is a strong essay angle on how marginalized movements reclaim slurs and dismissals.