Thinking of going to XR Big One in London on Sat...but will it be very full-on?

[Noteverythingisasitseems]

Want to go, and take DC. I'm not amazing with big crowds, but can handle it if it doesn't get too pushy/shove-like and full on. Never been to an XR gathering before - if you have, what should I expect, please?

Why do you keep lying?

I don't support anything this government has done, and I don't support restricting the right to protest.

Stop saying i do! It's bollocks.

They have the right to protest. I have NEVER said I'd support stopping that.

i have the right to hate them for protesting in a way that excludes huge numbers of people who are concerned about the same issues, alienates, denigrates and rejects people who are not white and middle class, and achieves nothing at all.

and I have the right to call them out publicly for these things.

These are the same rights essentially.

The miners suffered like hell during the 80s, as did the dock workers. To compare what they and their families went through for years on end, to these overprivileged tossers enjoying themselves by twatting around on a sunny saturday and patting each other on the back is a huge insult. As you must surely know.

@Bamboux why do you keep saying I am lying? I am not. I disagree with you. That is not the same.

You're lying about what I have said

You don't get to 'disagree' about what I think and what I have said.

I have said over and over again that i don't support any further restrictions on the right to protest, and you keep saying I do. No, I don't. You are lying because you're saying I think something which I don't think,and I support something that I don't support. That's not within your remit to say.

@Bamboux do you think people should have been allowed to protest in London today, even on coaches from the north of England or walking from Pimlico?

I do.

And, not incidentally, Extinction Rebellion being an overwhelmingly white, middle-class movement which doesn't give a shit about excluding minority ethnic and working-class people is very, very widely evidenced.

Here's some references. I've posted several of these several times on threads about XR. No one who supports them EVER engages with it They don't care.

Beyond inclusion? Perceptions of the extent to which Extinction Rebellion speaks to, and for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and working-class communities https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2021.1970728

Stop Asking People of Color to Get Arrested to Protest Climate Change
Extinction Rebellion is overwhelmingly shaped by the concerns, priorities, and ideas of middle-class white people. If it doesn't tackle white supremacy, it doesn't serve us.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbm3q4/extinction-rebellion-xr-is-shaped-by-middle-class-white-people-it-does-not-serve-people-of-color

When I look at Extinction Rebellion, all I see is white faces. That has to change
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/19/extinction-rebellion-white-faces-diversity#:~:text=The%20short%2C%20frank%20answer%20is,surrounded%20by%20poverty%20and%20austerity%20.

Extinction Rebellion isn't ‘beyond politics’ – and its members are waking up to their white privilege problemEven though the people most affected by climate change aren't wealthy or white, the world's biggest climate crisis movement hardly feels inclusive. And their willingness to get arrested betrays a feeling of safety around the police
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/extinction-rebellion-climate-crisis-justice-diversity-white-privilege-police-a9145776.html

Though they acknowledge XR still has a lot of work to do on this front, members say the latest protests have been the most diverse in its short history. Founded in 2018 by primarily white, middle-class climate activists in a rural English town, it perhaps comes as no surprise that XR has long been accused of lacking diversity. At the heart of this criticism is not just the fact that the majority of the movement’s participants represent a demographic similar to its founders’, but that its main strategy is civil disobedience with a stated goal of mass arrest. To Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) activists who had been active in Britain’s climate movement prior to XR’s debut, the approach callously endangers marginalized groups who are disproportionately targeted by police. XR’s tactics also illustrate a broader problem in the fight against climate change: Although people of color are most impacted by the climate crisis because of socioeconomic disparities that play out on both a local and global scale, BAME activists, climate scientists, and their communities are often slighted in or outright erased from the climate narrative.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/extinction-rebellion-climate-race/

'Why is climate activism so middle class and white?'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-leicestershire-51873499

Too white, too middle class and lacking in empathy, Extinction Rebellion has a race problem, critics say
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/24/uk/extinction-rebellion-environment-diversity-gbr-intl/index.html

YES.

How many fucking times do I need to say the same thing?

That's settled then.

What were you finding complicated or difficult in the previous 10 or 20 times I answered the same way to the same question?

Now that point has been answered (10 or 20 times) how about engaging with any of the research and evidence about XR's racism and hypocrisy?

I think that people should be allowed to vote for UKIP too (if they still exist). Or massively antisemitic shitheads who took Labour into a cesspit of racism. Or Scottish/Welsh nationalist parties. Or the Tories. Or the Pro-Life Alliance. Or any number of other decisions which I think are morally indefensible but necessary to let people do them in a democracy.

What's complicated to understand about thinking people should have the right to do something, while also thinking that doing it makes them massive dickheads?

@Bamboux I didn't find it at all complicated. I wasn't the one defining people's right to protest on grounds of their class, ethnic background, socio-economic group, geographical whereabouts, disco dancing or relevance of their activism on some kind of Relevance v Wankyness Scale.

As long as they're not going to do me any harm, come one, come all is my motto.

Helping visitors, of which there are a lot and having them walk away thinking: "What a nice woman, " is one of my greatest pleasures.

I like where I live and want to share it. You don't have to if you don't want to.

This is very interesting, thank you.
I hadn't seen the willingness to be arrested in that light. I saw it as a continuation of the tradition of utilising that middle class security — being less affected by arrest. I have family who were in the CND campaign in the 60s where middle class housewives got themselves sent to prison, the point being to use their respectability (or privilege) as a tactic. To me, that shows awareness that others aren't able to take on that role and a willingness to put their privilege to good use.

As someone who cannot face police-heavy protests or the threat of arrest (due to past trauma and being a single parent and carer), I'm grateful XR has expressed understanding of that and offers many other roles and support for people in my position.

In short, we need the middle classes to partake in activism.

Regardless, according to some, it's not activism, and its not a protest

No protest has ever stopped a mass extinction in the last 3.6 Billion years of our planet so why these idiots think they can stop one is beyond me. If we’re due another Ice Age we’ll get one no matter what after all our species was not industrialised 10,000 years ago at the start of the last one now was it? We’d barely emerged from our caves.
If anything is going to cause a mass extinction on this planet it will be violent volcanic eruptions caused by Nuclear War or our continuing pollution of our oceans and waterways combined with the destruction of the rainforests not oil, petroleum driven machinery or coal boilers. Whilst they may not help the environment they will certainly not cause a mass extinction other activities of mankind will as I have listed above so basically if you want to help to possibly prevent a mass extinction which you have no chance of doing then protest against the following:
The proliferation of Nuclear Armaments
The cutting down of Rainforests and other deforestation.
The use of chemical fertilisation and pesticides which poison our waters.
Building on Floodplains.
Use of Hardwoods.
The discharge of sewage into rivers and seas Worldwide
The deliberate pollution of our oceans etc etc etc.

How to tell the world you are entirely ignorant of science with every sentence…

Farmerama1

I was going to challenge Colourfingers2 post but you beat me to it and in a very efficient way! Nothing else to add.

Most people don't want to get arrested which is why it's great that they can express their views at entirely peaceful, family-orientated demonstrations like yesterday or go to the London Marathon which as promised, seems to have gone off smoothly.

I stopped watching it after the women's and men's elite races - fantastic, weren't they? - but I am happy for all those people who will still be chugging to the finish line.

I wish it could have been better weather for them but we can't have everything.

Good point