Google Bus Protest Organizer: “We’ll Take It to Their Homes” | Re/code
After blocking a Google bus and protesting outside the company’s head of e-discovery in San Francisco’s Mission district this morning – but before rallying 300 people in a planned protest outside the sites of attempted evictions — organizer Fred Sherburn-Zimmer sat down at Borderlands Cafe for a cinnamon roll.
Sherburn-Zimmer — who works at the Housing Rights Committee, is a member of the Heart of the City art and politics collective and regularly speaks at the rallies she organizes — said the past couple of weeks marked a turning point.
“You’re going to see fewer Google bus protests,” she said. “We’ll be doing other actions. We’ll be more targeted. We’ll take it to [housing speculators’] offices. We’ll take it to their homes. There are times when we’ll physically blockade people inside a building [if the sheriff is coming to evict tenants].”
Will there be violence?
“I can’t predict where the movement will go, but we’ll do whatever tenants need to do to win,” she said.
“These people are dangerous and must be stopped. Will the police uphold law & order? Or—misinterpreting the First Amendment—will they allow mob violence? What will it take to make sure they protect people who are under attack? We need to discuss and debate it like civilized people. Threats and intimidation tactics must be stopped, and everyone should recognize that anyone who employs those tactics is thereby removed from the discussion.” — J. Crawford