Members of the Boston contingent of Black Lives Matter have issued a lengthy statement following Thursday morning’s protests along I-93. Starting at 7:30 a.m., two groups of protesters shut down north and south lanes of traffic on I-93 in Milton and Medford, causing severe delays during peak morning rush hour. State police, Boston firefighters and other responders re-opened all lanes at roughly 10 a.m. A total of 29 people were arrested for their involvement in Thursday’s demonstrations.

In short, the statement (full version below) issued by the protesters addresses who they are and explains the reasoning for Thursday’s demonstrations. The big takeaway: Protesters are very aware how disruptive their actions were – the protests were intended to bring this morning’s commute to a standstill. Were there other, less disruptive ways to protests? Yes. But their point is that the struggle “Black and brown bodies” face – and have faced in varying ways throughout the course of history – on a daily basis in the United States is disproportionately greater than the struggles of privileged white Americans in a “capitalist structure.”

It’s important to note, too, that the protesters – “though many of us do identify as people of color” – are a “diverse group of LGBTQA, white, pan-Asian and Latin@ people.” Further, “We also recognize our unique position in the struggle for economic, political, gender and racial liberation: though many of us do identify as people of color, we are able to participate in such an action with significantly lower risk of physical harm and brutalization by the State specifically because we are NOT identified as Black.”

Here’s the protesters’ statement, as released to The Boston Globe:

Today, we place our bodies in the street for four and a half hours, the same amount of time Mike Brown lay dying in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri. We are a diverse group of LGBTQA, white, pan-Asian and Latin@ people acting in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, both locally and nationally. We stand behind the demands released by organizers in Ferguson, which can be found at http://fergusonaction.com/demands/

We are participating in this action in response to a national call for non-Black people to turn up for two central reasons. As non-Black people acting in solidarity, it is necessary to disrupt a capitalist structure that has been built on the physical and economic exploitation of Black bodies since our country’s inception. We also recognize our unique position in the struggle for economic, political, gender and racial liberation: though many of us do identify as people of color, we are able to participate in such an action with significantly lower risk of physical harm and brutalization by the State specifically because we are NOT identified as Black.

We maintain that the U.S. is and has always been a state founded on the exploitation, enslavement and oppression of people of color worldwide. The political and economic system we struggle under today would not exist without the centuries of exploitation of Black and brown people. It is crucial to recognize that capitalism is a system that is upheld by white supremacy. We cannot end capitalism without ending white supremacy. There is no such thing as total liberation without ending the exploitation of Black and brown bodies.

Mayor Marty Walsh and Governor Deval Patrick have both condemned the current anti-racist movement and its participants as “disruptive” to the city of Boston. But Boston is a city that stops, on average, 152 Black and brown people a day on their ways to work, to their homes, to school and to their families. Is that not “disruptive”? Boston is the third most policed city per capita in the country. Is it not disruptive for Black and brown residents to live under this extensive surveillance, under police intimidation and brutality? How can elected leaders of our city and state support the violent disruption of Black lives, but not the people resisting that very violence? A delay in traffic or on the MBTA is not comparable to the constant state of fear and anxiety created by police in Black and brown communities.

Governor Patrick has also complained that the peaceful protests are “expensive,” citing $2 million in police overtime pay during the last three major protests. Unnecessary deployment of both state and local forces, outfitted in full riot gear and with military-grade weaponry on reserve, is bound to be “expensive.” The $120 million used by our state government annually to incarcerate drug offenders is “expensive,” as is the proposed $2 billion budget to construct new detention facilities in Massachusetts in the next 7 years. Clearly, the State incurs immense expense criminalizing and surveilling Black and brown bodies. But who pays the highest price? Black and brown individuals and families who must try to rebuild, post-incarceration, in a city with no living-wage legislation, rapid gentrification and one of the highest costs of living in the country.

And so, for four and a half hours, we disrupt access from the predominantly white, wealthy suburbs to Boston’s city center. “Why do we do it this way? We do it this way because it is our experience that the nation doesn’t move around questions of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct action.” – Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

You can read more stories on Boston startups, technology and innovation at https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/inno