As the COVID-19 pandemic brought the global economy to a standstill in March 2020, a peculiar trend popped up in multiple cities: People started hanging white sheets out of their windows.<\/p>\n
With April rent coming due alongside\u00a0record unemployment numbers,\u00a0the white flags\u00a0became a protest symbol for struggling tenants\u00a0on the verge of a rent strike. The symbol spread online and eventually showed up in Chicago, Brooklyn, and New Orleans, according to\u00a0reporting\u00a0from CNN. The rent crisis also led to a rise in tenant unions, with tenants-turned-housing-activists in\u00a0Oakland\u00a0and\u00a0San Francisco\u00a0successfully organizing multi-month rent strikes that resulted in impressive wins.<\/p>\n
Despite the threat of eviction and potential economic and legal fallout, ordinary people, acting out of necessity, engaged in a collective act of defiance. It was one of the most visible recent examples of a type of organizing with deep historic roots in the U.S. and around the world: economic disobedience.<\/p>\n
The post Economic Disobedience: What Is It And How Does It Work?<\/a> appeared first on PopularResistance.Org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n