Strike
Considerations in preparation to pause for the general strike.
Naming
I keep thinking about the word strike.
Before it named a political act, it named a physical one. In Old English, it meant to move across something, to brush past, to make contact. That contact didn’t have to be violent at first. Just present. Just felt.
Over time, the meaning hardened. A strike became a hit. A blow. An interruption that left something changed. Even now, the word carries the trace of the body. An arm raised. A motion completed. Impact.
When workers began using the term "strike" to describe collective refusal, the metaphor wasn’t ornamental. It named something real. To strike wasn’t to withdraw quietly or opt out politely. It was to act by stopping. To exert force through absence.
I return to the word as a reminder that work has always been embodied, and that resistance has been too.
History
In 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, killing 146 garment workers. Most were young immigrant women. The factory occupied upper floors where exits were locked, stairwells were narrow, and fire escapes failed. When the fire spread, workers were trapped. Some burned where they stood. Others jumped.
What made the fire so devastating wasn’t just negligence. It was how easily these women’s bodies were treated as expendable. They were visible and invisible at the same time: known to be vulnerable, known to be replaceable, and managed accordingly.
After the fire, workers walked out. Grief turned into refusal. Mourning became interruption. Work slowed, and with it, the ability to look away. Conditions that had been tolerated in silence were suddenly impossible to ignore. 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, killing 146 garment workers. Most of them were young immigrant women. The factory occupied the upper floors of a building where exits were locked, stairwells were narrow, and fire escapes failed. When the fire spread, workers were trapped. Some burned where they stood. Others jumped from windows.
Pragmatism
A strike today doesn’t feel symbolic. It feels practical.
It responds to bodies that have been confined, deported, disappeared, and killed, and to a system that insists those losses are justified, incidental, or necessary. It emerges in a moment when harm has become routine.
The strike refuses participation in that routine. It interrupts systems that rely on intimidation, force, and denial. It insists that what has been normalized still costs something.
Stopping doesn’t solve everything. But it makes visible what power would prefer to process quietly.
Questions
What does "no business as usual" mean in practice? How can I participate in a meaningful way rather than just virtue-signaling? What are the ethics of sending my kid to school during a general strike? When has stopping worked? When has it failed? Who paid the cost either way? What was learned, and what was not? What remains unresolved?
More soon.
So. Much. Love. CU.
