Days speed by. Much like those travelling during off peak hours via the Horace Harding Expressway… It doesn’t hit us until an obnoxious flash of light reflects on our rearview mirror. Our vision is temporarily challenged, the windshield is blurred. An impulsive reaction tells you to slam the brakes. You just ran a yellow light that turned red, but you’re alive. If you stop now – you endanger those behind you, around you, those you pledge a licensed allegiance to. Whose roads? Their roads…

Last week in Oakland there was an extreme confrontation where the police evicted protestors in conjunction with this 99% movement. Basically, the cops tear gassed and rubber bulleted the square at an obscene hour (around 4AM) and injured a few, one quite critically. It just so happens that one member of the injured party was an Iraq veteran; now in critical condition awaiting multiple neurological surgeries. Why does one party with guns insist on blindly attacking?
To what ends?
And most importantly, where does this leave our communities? If we can reflect to Alexis Grigoropoulos of Greece for a moment – a time when the people of Athens hid critical mass and ‘took the streets’ in quite a different fashion.

It has this member of NYC wondering, do we need the death of one of our own in order to unite? Would it be farfetched to say that this city of 8 million plus is even a community at all? I guess it would depend upon what semantics lead us to think communities are; so you tell me.