A New School student was arrested during a large rally outside a Midtown hotel in April hoping to use her privilege to protest Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s racist beliefs, she said.
On April 14th, Carol Brown, 20, was charged with a civil disobedience violation for blocking the limo entrance for 20 minutes with seven other members of the activist group Showing Up For Racial Justice at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on 42nd Street.
“SURJ is trying to bring attention but also use our privilege to fight back because it’s less dangerous for white people,” Brown, a student studying at Eugene Lang said.
Her court date is set in June on her 21st birthday.
SURJ is an organization of white activists who educate and organize as part of the on-going fight against white supremacy and racial injustice.
“We are protesting Trump to expose the racist rhetoric he uses to galvanize working class whites, knowing especially that white silence on the part of those opposed to him has allowed his hate speech to proliferate,” SURJ-NYC members said in a press release about their arrestable action. “We demand that our state legislators stop enabling Trump to and stop benefiting from racist rhetoric and policies that scapegoat oppressed communities.”
In a video found on SURJ’s Facebook page, a group of activist run through cars on a busy road and sit themselves down in the middle of the street. They formed “the caterpillar” a formation used to reduce the amount of places police can grab a person and break up the action. While the activist had their arms and legs locked around each other they changed “Hey Trump! We’re NYC! No hate in our community!”
During the protest, she describes having parallel thoughts. “Yes, we are shutting this down. We are using our body’s and making a stand and that feels really good to sort of put your body where you mouth is” and “Oh God, oh God, oh God” ran through her mind. As Brown and other SURJ members formed “the caterpillar,” locking arms and legs with each other so police had few places to grab and break them apart, other activist groups of color managed to get in and caused a disruption in the media floor at the Grand Hyatt, hanging a banner on the mezzanine.
The eight SURJ activist, their photographer and their videographer were arrested. As they were taken to the police headquarters downtown they sang, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Through SURJ, Brown found a place to harness her activist energy in a productive way.
“The New School is supposed to be radial that’s what we came here for but there aren’t enough ties especially when it comes to race to be able to channel that energy into something productive other than theorizing what white supremacy does in the world,” Brown said.