Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I get your point, and I'm onboard with this. But at the end the whole burning it down thing by the protestors only hurts the people that shouldn't be hurt by this.
I remember the Rodney King riots where people that had nothing to do with King or the protests like a Truck driver doing his job was pulled out of his truck by a mob and stomped pretty well to death while protestors stood around and jeered. Or the shop owner in a documentary that had a business neighbor in the neighborhood for years and had paid his taxes and worked hard to feed his family had his business looted and burned down.
Violent protests achieve very little, except for feeding stereotypes.
Burning and looting aren't acts of protests. They don't get a point across, and gives the other side a pulpit to say, look they are what we said they are, and that's why the cops act like they do.
There was a reason why MLK Jr was not an advocate of violent protests, because it achieves nothing, builds community resentment and hatred and fuels racism, not stops it.
I was watching protest clips this morning, and I've said it before, its the job of the protestors to really stop the idiots that show up to loot, or burn or assault or whatever. The protests should bring the protestors together in a common goal, not victimize and destroy the innocent or the bystander.
Seeing young white protestors in masks hotwiring a bulldozer so he can bust windows on stores is not protesting, its violence for violence sake and they get off on it, and that should be your messenger.
The Million Man March worked because it didn't feed into the stereotypes, it wasn't about chaos and burning and beatings, it bought the community together into a common goal.
If your answer to police violence is more violence, what does it achieve, nothing, it just increases the budget of the police, it just ensures that the police will have more brutal responses, it ensures that the National Guard, a formation that's not trained in police work or law enforcement, but riot suppression is bought into play and more people get hurt, and more peoples lives get ruined.
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A few things:
1. Violent protests don’t “achieve very little,” but non-violent protests are more effective at achieving the same goals.
2. It is not the protestors job to control violent protestors, and the guilt by association you're suggesting is somewhat silly. It is the violent protestors job not to be violent, but given human nature, good luck.
3. The most effective form of protest is not one which lacks violence, but where nonviolent protest encourages violent response from the state. THIS is why MLK knew what he was doing. The places he chose were more prone to violent responses from the police force. They were looking for violence, but to be the victims of it, not the perpetrators.
This is an article worth reading which is where some of this information comes from:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...hange-politics