Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) shared an infographic on Saturday via Instagram with guidance for protesters, which she entitled “PROTESTING SAFELY,” including a warning of “white supremacists” who “may be infiltrating these protests.” Her recommendation came during ongoing demonstrations, protests, and riots in several cities following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Despite encouraging and supporting unrest, Ocasio-Cortez simultaneously advises her Twitter followers to avoid “public places” due to the coronavirus outbreak:
To everyone in NYC but ESPECIALLY healthy people & people under 40 (bc from what I’m observing that’s who needs to hear this again):
PLEASE stop crowding bars, restaurants, and public spaces right now. Eat your meals at home.
If you are healthy, you could be spreading COVID.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 14, 2020
Ocasio-Cortez’s infographic reads:
BE SAFE. Here’s our guide on being prepared for safe protests. PLEASE READ ⬇️
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1. LOOK OUT FOR THINGS THAT DON’T SEEM RIGHT. There are increasing reports and investigations that white supremacists may be infiltrating these protests, breaking windows and destroying property. If anything seems off to you, DOCUMENT IT. Always check who is organizing.
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2. FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS OF GRASSROOTS BLACK ORGANIZERS. They have been at this a long time and are disciplined in the ropes of community organizing and demonstration. It IS a discipline. Follow trusted leaders whose goal has been the focused pursuit of justice. If they just showed up, that’s a red flag.
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3. HAVE A BUDDY. Make sure someone is keeping an eye on you and check in on them.
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4. STAY SAFE and take care of each other.
Further centralization of political power and enforced material equality should be the response to current unrest, determined Ocasio-Cortez. She said:
If you are calling for an end to this unrest, and if you are calling for an end to all of this, but you are not calling for the end of the conditions that created the unrest, you are a hypocrite.
If you’re trying to call for the end of unrest, but you don’t believe health care is a human right, if you’re afraid to say, ‘black lives matter,’ if you’re too scared to call out police brutality, then you aren’t asking for an end of unrest. You are asking for injustice to continue, and for your people to continue to endure the violence of poverty, the violence of lack of housing access, the violence of police brutality, and not say a damn thing. That’s what you’re asking.
So if you’re out here calling for the end of unrest, then you better be calling for health care as a human right. You better be calling for accountability in our policing. You better be supporting community review boards. You better be supporting the end of housing discrimination. You better be standing up to for-profit real estate developers that are intimidating people and trying to evict them from their homes. That’s what you better be calling for, because if you don’t call for those things and you’re asking for the end of unrest, all you’re asking for is the continuation of quiet oppression.
So if you want the end of unrest, then you should be asking for measures that actually liberate people in their lives from the oppression of economic and social inequity.
Ocasio-Cortez regularly qualifies justice as “economic,” “social,” and “racial.”
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