Critical Mass: Green Example and A Cop Plays Tackle Football

For the past decade or so, Critical Mass has been taking to the streets of cities throughout the country. Here in New York it has become something of an infamous and celebrated tradition ever since the Republican National Convention when the police made thousands of illegal arrests (costing the city hundreds of thousands). Its numbers have since fluctuated, but it continues to be one of the best forms of participatory art and politics since the surrealists took to the Paris streets in the 1930’s. The last Friday of every month the Green revolution takes to the blackest streets around only to risk harassment and arrest by the NYPD. This past ride the Youtube generation once again proved what we learned first through Rodney King: videos may not stop injustice, but they do show it. And the officer who made the direct tackle of the cyclist for no visible reason, has apparently been placed on desk duty, stripped of his badge and gun.