Hot take:

The Montgomery Bus Boycott also had aspects of a strike.

They didn’t just withhold their patronage and money. They withheld their participation in the monopoly over buses held by the Montgomery city government within city limits, and, by extension, denied the bus system and its drivers the ability to deliver services to other residents. Among the reactions by city officials against the boycott was a ban on any bus charging less than the city government’s bus line. The city government and segregationist residents felt entitled to Black residents’ participation enough to brutalize those who boycotted and avoided the bus line.

A boycott only becomes effective when goes from mere avoidance of patronage to outright kneecapping when it harms its ability to deliver its goods and services to other people. But then can we call it a boycott?

And that’s what I’m thinking about regarding the #Strike4BlackLives. The players are denying sports, entertainment and perhaps more to a public and White House which feels incredibly entitled to their performance and presence, hence the attacks against those players who knelt and the admonishments to “shut up and play”.

Denying comfort to those who feel entitled to one’s participation feels more like a strike than a boycott. And that denial will be painful, maybe even more painful than the protests on the street. And that’s the point.

I look forward to seeing what comes from this strike.