Nonviolent Protest and Resistance Privileged

[Exian]

They killed for mere sit-ins and marches; is it so hard to imagine a worse response if the protesters turned violent?

Answering violence with violence may be understandable but it's probably not the wisest reaction. The faction controlling the narrative, and that's usually the more powerful one, will point to the counter violence as being the reason and justification for their violence.

As I view it, the civil rights movement largely not resorting to violence assured their victory. The ugly face of the racists was reveiled for everyone to see and it became harder to associate with them. Even for people who's sympathy may have been with racism and segregation in general.

And that's why it's important to organize protests. Khemikal is probably right for the most part that most people don't have a violent reaction, but it only takes one violent outburst to change the narrative.

[abaris]

If the evidence was that violence is necessary to effect change, I would have to rethink my position, but nonviolent protest has accomplished so much that it's a means that should be exhausted before considering escalating to violence.

You have to look at it that way. Even the GDR of old was toppled by non violent protestors who exposed themselves to a violent regime. They didn't know that the ruling class would shy away from using weapons and could rightfully fear for their lives. That's true for most of the former soviet block, even the soviet Union itself.

Violence may be - and was at times - an ultimate resort, but non violence has achieved so much more.

[The Grand Nudger]

So is provoking violence.  Expending lives to wear the other faction down.  That;s the entire point of provocation.  To give the other guys a chance to show themselves to be exactly what you say they are..over and over..until they run out of bodies to shoot or a taste for shooting bodies.

As another example of it;s effectiveness...":controlling the narrative" is easily subverted. If you can provoke a sustained and fevered hysteria on the part of the controlling party's media, and people are subjected to that day in and day out...that also wears on the collective will of the majority demographic the power structure relies on, as well as their trust -in- that power structure. Propaganda becomes obvious, even to dolts, at some point.

One might ask who was controlling the narrative in the first place. One could argue, for example, that the violent response to peaceful civil rights protestors, and the obviously bigoted official lines sold to the public -about- them...had just as much of an effect as the peacefulness of the protesters themselves on changing the situation. It wore down our taste for institutional racism, it wore down our patience for being associated with institutional racism, and it certainly wore down our patience for enforcing institutional racism.

How many of us want to see the cops in full urban war getups, rolling onto city streets in uparmored assault vehicles, tossing diluted chemical weapons into crowds or, worst case scenario, opening fire on mobs? How long will we stand for that..regardless of why they do it? How long will we stand to see the converse, people using their own bodies and improvised weapons as a means to be heard? At what point do we just give up the bullshit and say "okay, you clearly have a greivance, or at least you think you do..let;s go to the table for meaningful and unambiguous reform." How many of us already think we should be at that point...why aren't we? Hence, rioters.

[Thumpalumpacus]

As an example of the "better", the US will -never- have any purchase on condemning violent rebellion.  We availed ourselves of and reserved the right -to- revolution.  Rioting in the face of tyranny is a foundational american tradition.....but I guess we don;t think that everybody™ should be able to make the same arguments and ake the same actions that some™ of us did.

We could always don powdered wigs and leggings, no doubt that would sell the argument better.

[Exian]

What certain point would that be, Thump? Are the issues getting close enough, yet, to where you and Rhythm 'have' to decide whether or not violence might be required?

Hah.  I'm the right shade of lipstick, a combat arms vet....and a married, middle aged property owner in an anomalously wealthy section of rural america.  Not only is our entire system set up to support and fellate me, I -could- open fire on a cop and not only survive...but some dipshit like you would laud me as resisting the evil federal oppressors.

@Exian, they killed before there were sit-ins as well.  African trophy hunting has a long and venerable history with southern racists.  Since we're rattling the bones of the civil rights movement and shaming the current crop by reference, let's take a closer look.  If the civil rights movement was as successful in coercing america to fulfill it's promise, why is there an impetus for rioting today?  Have people -not- been peacefully protesting institutional racism every day since that day?  Is that approach working, in your opinion?  Is the propaganda spun about our current unrest different than the propaganda spun about hat civil unrest?  Today, rioters are anarchists engaged in illegal activities that are ruining america, who don't have it so bad, and just want to upset the apple cart and blah blah blah, yesterday...... the same was said about civil rights operatives.  

Some things never change.  For better or for worse, even.  As an example of the "better", the US will -never- have any purchase on condemning violent rebellion.  We availed ourselves of and reserved the right -to- revolution.  Rioting in the face of tyranny is a foundational american tradition.....but I guess we don;t think that everybody™ should be able to make the same arguments and ake the same actions that some™ of us did.

Would you have me not use John Lewis and the SNCC as a shining example?

[abaris]

How many of us already think we should be at that point...why aren't we?  Hence, rioters.

Many of these rioters are just because rioters. Such as the black block, an international movement of anarchists who travel from protest to protest to wreak havock, thereby giving the whole protest and movement a bad name.

That's an international phenomenon of doing more harm than good and I don't really think these guys care.

We're not at the stage of having to pick up arms yet. We're far from it, as long as courts are still doing their work and the constitutions are upheld. I presented the example of protestors in the former soviet block. With the one exception of Rumania, which didn't even really belong to that block, they all were peaceful. There were just so many people taking the streets that the rulers no longer dared to response violently. Sure, they arrested some, picked them from the streets, but others took their place and the movements only grew in force and made the powerful fear for their own hide.

There's even a very little known example of that happening in the Third Reich. During the war, I believe around '42, a large group of women took the streets to protest their husbands being deported. This was an isolated incident, but the regime buckled. The men were released and never bothered again.

[The Grand Nudger]

Would you have me not use John Lewis and the SNCC as a shining example?

I would prefer that people didn't shake the bones of the civil rights movement in order to shame people who are now rioting because of the failure of the american experiment to live up to the promise of that same movement.  

It's no more or less than the 21st century equivalent of telling blacks, for example..to be good house negroes if they want to be treated like a good house negro.  I understand that many people do not intentionally mean to come off that way, ofc.  

By all means, use John Lewis ( ) as an example...but don't use that example to denigrate, de-ligitimize, or demean another group using another means when the former means seems to have failed. It's not only sloppy thinking, it's the suggestion that the best means of resistance to oppression is to resist on the oppressors own terms, in accordance to and within the boundaries of the standards of behavior that the oppressors have determined for the oppressed. It's particularly vile, in that the majority block has a separate set of standards for their own "resisters" - who can invade federal property and fortify it with semi-automatic weapons and be lauded by that same group as heroes and freedom fighters, and leans as a cultural artifact upon violent resistance as a foundation of statehood.

Many of these rioters are just because rioters. Such as the black block, an international movement of anarchists who travel from protest to protest to wreak havock, thereby giving the whole protest and movement a bad name.

That's an international phenomenon of doing more harm than good and I don't really think these guys care.

We're not at the stage of having to pick up arms yet. We're far from it, as long as courts are still doing their work and the constitutions are upheld. I presented the example of protestors in the former soviet block. With the one exception of Rumania, which didn't even really belong to that block, they all were peaceful. There were just so many people taking the streets that the rulers no longer dared to response violently. Sure, they arrested some, picked them from the streets, but others took their place and the movements only grew in force and made the powerful fear for their own hide.

There's even a very little known example of that happening in the Third Reich. During the war, I believe around '42, a large group of women took the streets to protest their husbands being deported. This was an isolated incident, but the regime buckled. The men were released and never bothered again.

I'll ignore the block block bullshit, it's pointless.  

Here, today, people can peacefully protest -or- riot and the regime doesn't buckle, it doubles down.  The Nazis were more amenable to civil disobedience, in your example...than we have historically been or currently are to civil or violent disobedience.  Food for thought.

[Exian]

I'll walk you through my thought process, as tedious as that is, but it looks like it's needed since you think I'm trying to shame the current crop (and maybe I did inadvertantly).

I'm not saying violent revolution doesnt have its place. Thats a different discussion. The OP says that they were told nonviolent protest is a white privilege. I have to assume the idea behind that is that only the privileged whose livelyhoods aren't threatened can afford to take a patient, nonviolent route. The first thing I think of when I think of nonviolent protest is the SNCC, so you could already imagine how silly the white privilege idea is applied here to me, but I offered an example anyway. The direct violent response to their sit-ins... yadda yadda. Beat the dead horse. They couldn't afford to be violent, not with their lives and not with their message. Violence was always an option, of course, but only barely. Only if they wanted their message to be tarnished, and only if they wanted a more violent backlash than they already saw. So in a sense, and in response to the OP, it's violence that's a white privilege, at least in that time. And some might argue it's true now, when any violent act by a Muslim is an Islamic extremist FEAR ALL MUSLIMS! and any violent act by a white American Christian is a lone wolf, leaving all white people's reputations intact. But in reality, it's case by case, and given all media outlets, everything gets praised or tossed under the bus pretty evenly.

I agree that the violent response to their non violent protest was as much a part of getting their message across as the nonviolence itself, but had they lashed out, the narrative would have changed. So in staying nonviolent, they controlled the narrative and they kept their message.

To be clear, using the peaceful protests of the Civil rights movement wasn't meant to shame anybody, but as a stark contrast to nonviolence being a white privilege.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'll walk you through my thought process, as tedious as that is, but it looks like it's needed since you think I'm trying to shame the current crop (and maybe I did inadvertantly).

I'm not saying violent revolution doesnt have its place. Thats a different discussion. The OP says that they were told nonviolent protest is a white privilege.

Which it is.  If I non-violently protest something the chances of my being beaten with a baton or teargassed or jailed are markedly lower than a black man doing the same.  I am privileged to have certain expectations of how authority will respond to me, regardless of my perceived belligerence.   For me, even pointing a gun at a cop but not shooting is still "peaceful protest" in a significant portion of the public mind.   

I have to assume the idea behind that is that only the privileged whose livelyhoods aren't threatened can afford to take a patient, nonviolent route. The first thing I think of when I think of nonviolent protest is the SNCC, so you could already imagine how silly the white privilege idea is applied here to me, but I offered an example anyway. The direct violent response to their sit-ins... yadda yadda. Beat the dead horse. They couldn't afford to be violent, not with their lives and not with their message. Violence was always an option, of course, but only barely. Only if they wanted their message to be tarnished, and only if they wanted a more violent backlash than they already saw. So in a sense, and in response to the OP, it's violence that's a white privilege, at least in that time. And some might argue it's true now, when any violent act by a Muslim is an Islamic extremist FEAR ALL MUSLIMS! and any violent act by a white American Christian is a lone wolf, leaving all white people's reputations intact. But in reality, it's case by case, and given all media outlets, everything gets praised or tossed under the bus pretty evenly.

It doesn't seem to be a "case by case" basis when, in each case, one ethnic group relative to the other possesses the privilege no matter which way you cut it.  

I agree that the violent response to their non violent protest was as much a part of getting their message across as the nonviolence itself, but had they lashed out, the narrative would have changed. So in staying nonviolent, they controlled the narrative and they kept their message.

The narrative would have changed to what?  The narrative -then- was already as dismal as it could be.  We fondly recall the civil rights movement -now- in light of history, and not all of us...but then..they were a bunch of criminals and anarchists, and riots and murders and rapes were attributed to them.  

To be clear, using the peaceful protests of the Civil rights movement wasn't meant to shame anybody, but as a stark contrast to nonviolence being a white privilege.

You, yourself, just gave examples as to why non-violent protest was then and is now a white privilege.  They were -beaten- and -killed- for their trouble, both by the public and by the state...while the press demonized them roundly. Alls well that ends well, we might imagine..and say "at least it worked".....but, obviously, some rioters don't agree that things ended well at all.

[Exian]

And you said you could point a gun at a cop. That would be violent white privilege, wouldn't it? I guess we'd have to agree the lines are blurred.

They proved the narrative wrong by controlling it with non-violence. The public became incensed, as you stated. Particularly when a woman, whose name slips my mind, gave her account on live tv, that was abruptly cut into, but the news already grabbed it and ran with it, and more after bloody sunday. Would the public have been so incensed had the protesters been violent from the start? I say no.