Extinction Rebellion and Women in Black In Black Friday Protests

San Francisco, November 29, 2019. As millions of shoppers undertook the yearly Black Friday pilgrimage to worship at the altars of Bloomingdales, Gucci and Apple, there were those who came to make the connections between mindless consumption, war, and the destruction of life on the planet .

Young people held a "die in" at the Westfield Mall, a huge collection of stores connected by a pretend "outdoors".   Here the virtually connected but physically isolated could, at least for a day,  interact with real people on crowded excalators and in long lines at shop counters.

Among the throngs seeking financial redemption in their Black Friday Discount, about fifty young people from Extinction Rebellion sprawled on the floor in a "die in" to remind us what our consumption of the earth's wealth is leading to. The pile of "dead" young people demanding not to be robbed of their future injected a somber note among the holiday decorations.

In crowded Union Square, a couple of blocks away, Women in Black protested war in general and Israel's oppression of Palestine in particular. Along with Code Pink (see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/08/03/18825181.php) they frequently protest on this issue.