Then there was no looting or defacement of the
Lincoln and Washington monuments. No one peed in the
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool while listening to Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr’s stirring “I have a Dream” speech (aka “March for Jobs
and Freedom" speech, 1963).
There were the famous protests for civil rights led by likes of Rev. King, A. Phillip Randolph, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, such as the Montgomery Bus Protest (1965/66), the Birmingham campaign (1963), the Selma march (1965), or the Chicago Peace March (1967) or the March against the Vietnam War (1967). Then there was the “Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968 which was aimed at alleviating the economic poor and improving housing for all races, but where was the violence? There wasn't any.
Chavez, King, Abernathy, and all the others never intentionally blocked traffic. They never looted or defaced property. They didn’t try and keep people from going to their jobs to earn money in order to put food on their table or keep a roof over their head. They didn’t try to keep ambulances from helping individuals in crisis.
No one blocked the fire department from trying to save
someone’s home and their possessions, not to mention their lives? They didn’t
loot, commit arson, deface public and private property, throw trash cans
everywhere or set bonfires in the middle of road? None of that happened? They
didn’t intentionally assault anyone? They didn’t even spit on anybody or scream
in their ear? Once again, the answer is no. Leaders repeatedly reminded their
followers to avoid violence at all costs. They were also encouraged to respect
people’s personal space.
Didn’t “social
justice warriors” like King, Chavez, Wilkins, and Abernathy modelled their
protests after the anarchist,
Mahatma Gandhi? Afterall, aren’t you supposed to substitute yourself in place
of the message? Isn't ending dialogue the goal right?
Well, no. While they did model their protests on Gandhi, he
was all about non-violence, passive resistance, and trying to create dialogue. Gandhi wasn't an anarchist although some try to portray him as such today. So, today’s protests and protestors (aka “social justice warriors”) are
nothing like their Civil Rights movement counterparts. So, if not the Civil
Rights Movement, what about other protests? Incidentally, while Caser Chavez was a major proponent of migrant rights and founder of the United Farm Workers, he opposed illegal immigration, believing it harmed those here legally and gave the impression that all Hispanics were criminals.
There were the anti-war protests, often led by individuals
like Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, and Abbe Hoffman. in Lafayette Park, the National Mall, and the
campuses at universities like Berkeley, Kent State, Chicago, and throughout the
U.S., as well as the 1971 Mayday Protest. There was the protests by Native
Americans, led by individuals like Dennis Means, Russell Means, and Clyde Bellecourt.
They led a series of non-violent protests (known as the “Trail of Broken
Treaties), including occupying the offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but
that too was non-violent.
Following a notoriously violent police raid in 1969 on a gay
nightclub in New York’s Greenwich Village, gays, fronted by leaders like Phyllis
Lyons and Frank Kameny, began openly (yet peacefully) protesting for a change
in laws to decriminalize homosexuality. The “Women’s Liberation Movement” ,
whose leadership included Bella Abzug, Democratic presidential candidate,
Shirley Chisholm, and Gloria Steinem, also started in the 1970’s over a number
of issues ranging from equal pay and treatment at work, abortion, separate credit
and financial rights, etc. None of these protests involved spitting on people,
arson, or looting (although a few innocent bras were burned).
The following year, in 1970, on the relatively quiet campus
of Kent State University in Ohio, just over 300 or so students had gathered to
protest the expansion of the war in Vietnam into Laos and Cambodia. The
Ohio National Guard was called in to maintain “control” over loud but otherwise well behaved students. For reasons still unclear, 28 members of the
National Guard opened fire on the peaceful crowd.
By the time the shooting stopped some 13 seconds later, 67
rounds had been fired and four students lay dead. Two were 19 and two were 20. Nine
students were badly injured. Although there was a hearing, not one of the 28
members of the National Guard or their officers, were found guilty. As a
result, over four million students across the country staged a mass walk out and
there was no looting. No arson. A friend of mine, who was a student journalist at
Kent State at the time, told me that despite the anguish and anger, there was
no talk of revenge on the National Guard members or the judge.
None of this is intended to imply that the 1960’s and ‘70’s
lacked violence from the Left. They did, and lots of it, such as the Watts
Riots in LA which spread across the nation or the riots following the murder of
MLK in 1968. However, the majority of violence, as it pertains to protests, didn’t
come from the protestors themselves. It came for the “Establishment” and those
on the Far Right. So, what happened? What changed?
By the mid-1970’s, protesting was becoming organized and financed. There were individuals called "coordinators" who were considered “experts” at organizing a protest (Saul Alinsky is considered to be the "father" of modern protests). They would train or bring in certain individuals to be “squad leaders” to lead the direction of the protests, who continuously reported to the coordinators.
They would also work with coordinators and others to create local specific slogans for signs and banners which were produced out of state and shipped in to avoid being traced by law enforcement with other signs, more generic, were homemade.
Seminars would be formed to help participants learn how to
deal with police tactics, passive resistance, how to non-aggressively provoke
the other side and law enforcement, and deescalate any anxiety participants
might have. They would also practice ways to non-aggressively resist, rehearse
their message, and gain the media’s attention in a way to make it appear that
they have the moral high ground.
Links would be established with like-minded groups, organizations
and legal aid societies, including a bail fund. Key individuals would be given an 800 phone
number which will connect them to a lawyer on standby who will help with the bail and
obtain their quick release from jail.
By the early 2000’s, tactics changed again. Protests became almost indistinguishable from riots. Violence, once shunned by earlier organizers (including Alinsky), became virtually “de rigueur”. The actions of the individuals took the forefront, often obscuring the message of the protest.
Actions could
include trying to block vehicles with your body (especially if the media was
present), ignoring the other person’s personal space while over emphasizing yours, shouting (or screaming) the opposition
down, spitting on someone to provoke a reaction, exaggerated acting to an action, using certain
words, phrases, or sounds to rally and surround a perceived “threat”, as well as
protesting without a permit or illegally blocking traffic (even King obtained a permit).
Physical violence, with the aim to intimidate and demoralize the other side, has also found its way into modern “protests” in a way that would have appalled Dr. King, Cesar Chavez, or Shirley Chisolm. As an aside, some use protests today as a cover for looting, theft, arson, disfiguring or destroying public and private property (which is solely intended to create an added strain on local first responders). If these wannabe “social justice warriors” truly want to change the system, they need broad public support across social, racial, and economic lines. What they are doing is not how you get it. Mayhem, rather than the message, seems more and more to be the objective. That only weakens the message and prevents the change you want.
Personally, I’m not sure I’d even give them that. I prefer
to think of them as cannon fodder and eventual statistics. Their ‘60’s and 70’s
predecessors were mostly successful with their goals when based on
non-violence. The actions of the current generation will likely result in failure because of choice to use violence.
Regardless, if they continue with their present strategy, the end result will
be that they accomplish nothing with the exception of alienating people to
their cause and enhancing the power of the surveillance state and the empire.
Thank you for reading
"Another Opinion", the Op/Ed blog page for the "militant
middle". Here at "A/O" we truly value our readers. At
A/O we seek the facts as they exist, not partisan talking points. We
hope you find our articles informative and engaging. Comments are welcome,
provided they are not vulgar, insulting or demeaning. Another
Opinion is offered without charge and is directed toward all independent and
free-thinking individuals. We ask, however, that you "like" us on
whatever platform you found us on in order to keep our articles available for
free to others. Lastly, in order to keep costs down, we depend on passive
marketing, and therefore, depend on our readers to please forward our posts
along. Below you will find links to the sources we used in writing this
article. Thank you.
APWU: Our Labor History: Cesar Chavez Leads “1000 Miles March”for Farm-Worker Rights in California
Cesar’s Thousand Mile March: A 59 Day Trek
Martin Luther King Jr.: 8 peaceful protests that bolsteredcivil rights
Malcolm and the Civil Rights Movement
Speaking and Protesting In America: Protesting in the 1960’sand 1970’s
Leaders in the Struggle for Civil Rights
Anti-War Protests of the 1960-70’s
1968 Democratic National Convention Protests
No comments:
Post a Comment