I have not had time to write about this earlier, but I was reminded of something during this past Martin Luther King Day. I think we are sadly at a point where the call for nonviolent protest can easily be turned as a weapon against those who are fighting for racial justice. This is something that I do not think even King himself could have predicted. I mean specifically the formation of a very high and strict standard for how a protest must be acted out that is set beforehand by the media, pundits, and conservatives in general. And when the protest does not reach this standard, even though by most measures it is less violent in many ways than the responding police or counter-protesters, the entire message is condemned or invalidated. This may be partly due to the postmortem depiction of King as a saint rather than a radical leader and fierce fighter for justice that he in fact was. In other words, if the young protesters of today are not exactly like the image of a perfectionist King, then what they are fighting for is not real in the eyes of the status quo. We need to remind ourselves that this high standard, and moving the proverbial goal posts back, is in fact done by this same status quo that has no interest in racial justice succeeding at all. These are people who require a social hierarchy of haves and have nots, whether it is in regards to wealth or rights. They need a permanent underclass that can be villified easily, and in the case of racial hierarchy that means portraying black people as inherently violent. So they will create impossible standards for black people in regards to protest behavior, while at the same time giving a free pass to the police backed up by this image of violent black people that supposedly need to be controlled. I am a member of the Green Party, and one of our main principles is nonviolence. That means I support nonviolent protest as the best approach to get things done not because I am perfect or superior in terms of morality, but because it is the most pragmatic tactic. King pointed out that nonviolent protest in the face of brutal police repression creates a clear picture of the oppressive nature of those in power with no confusing ambivalence. It also makes good sense in that the force exerted by a potential protest will never match the monopoly on violence of the state, so other paths must be taken. I also understand that this rebirth of the civil rights movement is made up of other people who may think that absolute nonviolence is futile or that destruction of property is not the same thing as violence against humans. Those who are quick to criticize this movement are those who do not believe in nonviolence anyways. They believe in redemptive violence and that might makes right. They have the mentality of the bully. Therefore, we must be vigilant to make sure that nonviolence is a practical method rather than used as a weapon against us by those who would want to kill us anyway. We do not need to make the oppressors happy.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 03:41:45 +0000
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