We really need to talk about protests
Lately on Quaker listservs and the interwebs I see many F/friends denouncing “violent” protesters. I see F/friends calling folks who damage property “provocateurs” or otherwise othering these “anarchists.” I’m also seeing F/friends situating compliance with law enforcement as the “correct” or “good” way to protest.
Um, y’all?
These statements are problematic and ignore historical reality.
Labeling protesters who destroy property, or who are involved in militant community defense, as “violent,” as “provocateurs,” or as “crazies” mislocates the actual source of violence.
Let’s be clear: the agents of violence are ICE and cooperating law enforcement (and the military) acting on behalf on an overtly authoritarian, white supremacist regime.
Again, and louder, for the back rows: AUTHORITARIANISM, WHITE SUPREMACY, ICE, AND MILITARIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT ARE THE SOURCES AND CENTERS OF VIOLENCE.
Property damage is not violence.
Characterizing property damage or militant community defense as “violent” suggests we are putting property on a par with human life.
Nope. I will not equate windows or vehicles with human life. Will you?
I hope we’ve all asked ourselves: What would I do if my beloved spouse was ripped from my arms, in broad daylight, on the street, to be abducted by ICE?
Would you appreciate lectures from (mostly white) liberals (who are not yet themselves in danger) on “correct,” “nonviolent” protesting and “good optics?”
Or would you do everything you could to get your spouse back — and also TRY TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING TO OTHER FAMILIES?
(Public service announcement: The point of destroying ICE or law-enforcement vehicles is that every ICE van set ablaze, every tire slashed, means one fewer family violently separated that day. One fewer neighbor disappeared by the state.)
Look, I am neither condoning nor condemning the destruction of law-enforcement vehicles. I am saying there are rational reasons for doing this.
Dropping cinder blocks on cop cars is parallel to the ways anti-war activists destroy property: sabotaging munitions factories,
throwing blood on missiles.
Do we as Quakers, or simply as people of conscience, applaud and uplift these anti-war actions — or do we call these actions “violent” or say they are are “bad optics?”
Law enforcement vehicles and equipment, like missiles, are weapons of state violence: they are being used by agents of an increasingly, blatantly authoritarian, white supremacist government to kidnap our neighbors.
Why would Quakers not condone and even uplift the dismantling or destruction of such weapons of state violence?
Perhaps are still laboring under the delusion that law enforcement is good, or necessary. Perhaps we think police protect us. P
erhaps that is because we grew up with white supremacy — that we were told, and are still convinced, that our safety is bound up with law enforcement.
If we are white, it is easy for us to think that law enforcement is here to “protect and serve.” Because law enforcement is constructed to serve, uphold, and enforce white supremacy and its laws.
Who does law enforcement really serve? Who does it endanger? What is at stake?
Many of us attend nonviolent marches, rallies, and protests to oppose unjust laws. Sometimes even to oppose white supremacy. That is deeply good.
What is NOT deeply good is F/friends’ admonishments to always comply with law enforcement, and/or to distance ourselves from “provocateurs” so police can identify and arrest them.
If we spread these messages — if we are literally doing law enforcement’s job for them — is it any wonder we are mistrusted by our more vulnerable, marginalized, and/or more direct-actionist brethren?
Have we ever scratched our heads, genuinely puzzled why younger actionists don’t trust us? Or why Black and brown liberation movements don’t trust us? Well, y’all. THIS IS WHY. Because we venerate “peaceful (read: comfortable) action.” We tell each other to separate out any “provocateurs.”
Is that solidarity?
No. And that’s shameful. Because guess what? We protesters? We’re all on the same team.
It’s okay if we personally aren’t willing or able to engage in more radical actions.
But we sure as hell shouldn’t be throwing comrades under the bus. (Or, more precisely, into the wheels of the carceral, caging machine.)
One easy thing we can do in solidarity? It’s the OPPOSITE of separating out the “provocateurs.”
If we see cops homing in on a comrade, surround that comrade. Help them disappear into the crowd.
And if a teenager is smashing a Starbucks window or spray-painting an anti-genocide message? Distract the cops until that teen can get away.
If someone is on “government” property, climbing a light pole at a rally, and cops are yelling at them? Get to that light pole to let that person slip into the crowd.
If “anarchists” are running from the cops after an autonomous action? Open your door and scoot them in. Hide them. They are doing what they are doing because they know it’s the right thing to do.
Even if you can’t or don’t want to do that?
At the very, very least, let’s refrain from spreading divisive, unhelpful messages.
Please do not conflate complying with law enforcement with being a “good” protester.
After all, ICE is law enforcement.
Should we comply with ICE?
Hm. Well, St. Augustine of Hippo, for one, said, “An unjust law is no law at all.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted St. Augustine.
And Dr. King is being invoked like whoa in messages urging protesters to limit protests to “nonviolent” action for “good optics” so we aren’t “counterproductive” or “play into Trump’s hands.” (Et tu, Bernie?)
Well, even Dr. King told us “… we have a responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Hear that, y’all? We have a responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
“But getting a permit for the rally, or staying on the sidewalk during the protest … those aren’t unjust laws. Those laws are anodyne. We should comply.”
Hmm. Should we?
Let’s recall that in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King located and named the “great stumbling block” of the civil rights struggle.
Remember what it was?
It was the white moderate.
King named, lamented, raged against the white moderate. More current terms for the white moderate: the white liberal. The white progressive. The white Democrat.
King denounced the white moderate (liberal / progressive / Democrat) who … “is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.’”
Deep breath.
Let’s lookit that again:
“l agree with your goals, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.”
Hmm.
Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?
Sounds very much like the flurry of messages from liberals and progressives and Dems on social media, texts — and on Quaker listservs, doesn’t it?
Yes, yes, I know: “Dr. King practiced nonviolence.”
Let us also recall that King refused to decry “violent” riots. Notably, Dr. King said, “riots are the voice of the unheard.” And not to worry: we’ll come back to the civil rights movement shortly.
“But Quakers have a testimony of peace.”
Yes, we sure do.
And one of the many aspects I appreciate about Quakers is that our testimonies are not creeds, dogmas, or rules. They are reflections, queries, experiences —indeed, testimonies— for us to consider, hold in our hearts, contemplate, interpret within ourselves and in our communities.
And interpret the peace testimony differently Quakers have. A quick example: Edwin and Barclay Coppock, Quaker brothers who were down with John Brown.
Why did the Coppock brothers take up arms and follow John Brown? Precisely because they were Quakers, precisely because of their Quaker upbringing. “It had been ingrained into their very nature that all men were created equal and that slavery was a crime against God and man, and with this conviction they resolved to shoulder their muskets and go out and fight to liberate the slaves.”
Edwin, the elder Coppock brother, was captured with John Brown at Harpers Ferry and shared Brown’s fate on the gallows at age 24. Barclay, who was 21 during the rebellion at Harpers Ferry, escaped Harpers Ferry with Owen Brown (son of John Brown), and was a nationally wanted man — until the same government who put a price on his head asked him to please be an officer of the Union Army. Edwin was died as a lieutenant while recruiting a regiment for the Civil War.
My personal leading on our peace testimony is that, for peace to flourish, we first must create the conditions for peace.
My version of the conditions for peace jibes with King’s “positive peace that is the presence of justice.”
My vision is a shared, expansive dream of universal everything: beautiful and safe housing; healthcare and medicine; shared, equitable access to beautiful parks and recreation; plentiful food; meaningful employment according to ability; worker control of the means of production; economic and physical security; excellent education; child and elder care; joyful accommodations for every kind of disability; restorative and transformative processes to address any harms done; plentiful time for art and relaxation, joy and celebrations; harmony with planet; well-being of all living things.
I’m talking about agape, baby!
This vision is obviously quite different than a “negative peace which is the absence of tension.” If you ask me, that kind of “peace” is basically just the status quo: white people avoiding risk and privileging our own comfort.
For how long?
How long will we privilege our comfort?
A hard truth is that we are living through the rise of an overtly fascist, authoritarian, white-supremacist state. This did not start with Trump. But it’s certainly getting much, much worse under him, and very quickly.
Perhaps these escalating threats require escalating tactics.
“But history show us that nonviolence is the most effective strategy for creating social change.”
Ummm… the truth is that most justice movements do NOT succeed through passive resistance, or what we might think of as “nonviolence,” alone.
Movements rely on a variety of tactics.
We ignore this at our peril.
(Don’t worry, I’ll get to that evergreen BBC article we love to pass around, touting the efficacy of nonviolent movements shortly.)
Much of the civil rights movement used nonviolence as a strategy and nonviolent protests and boycotts as tactics. Of course.
What history often omits are the armed folks defending the nonviolent faction of the civil rights movement.
We may forget, or perhaps we never learned, of groups like Deacons for Defense and Justice. The Deacons were World War II veterans who took up arms to protect movement workers from vigilante and police violence. They were part of a “working-class armed self-defense movement that defied the entrenched nonviolent leadership and played a crucial role in compelling the federal government to neutralize the Klan and uphold civil rights and liberties.”
We lift up SNCC - the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — in which Quakers played a role. And well we should lift SNCC up.
Yet we ignore, or never learned, of the many folks who opened their homes to students of SNCC — and who sat up all night on their front porches, shotguns in laps, to protect sleeping SNCC members.
These local hosts appreciated what the students were doing, but many times told SNCC youth, “this nonviolent stuff will get you killed.”
It’s also worth noting that it wasn’t until the “violent” uprisings after the assassination of Dr. King that the Civil Rights Act of 1968 passed.
And important to note that King was flanked on the left by a militant (and bad-ass) Black Power movement that made King’s movement appear more mainstream, and, therefore, more preferable.
And yes, I’ve seen links going around citing the BBC piece about the book, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict”, by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephen.
Friends, I’ve read the book. It isn’t what you think it is.
A couple things to note about this book:
First, it is part of the series “Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare,” and its intended audience is actors and agents of the U.S. and other “western” governments tasked with spreading “western” interventions and policies. The book and its values are staunchly neoliberal.
Second, the authors don’t really distinguish between movements’ goals, only whether a movement topples an existing regime. The Iranian Revolution, the Carnation Revolution… doesn’t matter. All movements are flattened.
If that’s not enough to raise your eyebrows, note that the authors the authors categorize movements as nonviolent if the MAJORITY of the movement are not militarized non-state actors.
Further, the authors do not characterize destroying property, or constructing barricades, or throwing rocks, or pelting cops with paint balloons, as violence.
This also means that the “nonviolent” movements they cite as success stories include movements with armed factions and guerrilla wings, as long as the “nonviolent” membership is more populous than the “violent” actionists.
All of this makes the book not what you think it is.
It makes the characterization of “nonviolent” movements misleading to many people. Unless an armed guerilla wing fits into your definition of nonviolence.
While strategy, tactics, and community involvement in movements can be complex, my ask of F/friends is simple:
Let’s please, please not create divides between “good” and “bad” protesters.
Honestly? My experience is that a lot of folks who get up to hijinks and mischief at protests — mischief that might be arrestable and make some of us uncomfortable — are the very folks who you can most rely on.
These “provocateurs” are often the people who, without hesitation, will put themselves on the line to protect the community: to move folks out of harm’s way, to extinguish tear gas, to take an arrest in lieu of someone else.
That’s been my experience at least. And I’ve been to a protest or two over the years.
Also please note: the “sit down if cops look threatening” advice going around IS DANGEROUS.
Sitting down if cops are advancing puts you and others at risk. It makes it harder for you to move. It makes it much harder for people around you to move.
This advice kinda screams, “I’ve never been in an escalatory situation at a protest.” (Which, if I’m being frank, also means, “I’ve never been at a protest that wasn’t fully permitted and law-compliant, predominantly white, and/or regarded as non-threatening to the powers-that-be.”)
My experience at protests is that cops start the violence.
I have been at completely chill, peaceful gatherings that turn into complete shitshows only and exclusively because cops decided to roll up.
Every protest I’ve ever attended has been “nonviolent” - until cops get violent.
And if you think that law enforcement officers who are ready to escalate at a rally give one iota of a rat’s ass that you are sitting down or trying to separate yourself from the “baddies?”
I need to burst your bubble, and it’s for your own good.
Cops. Do. Not. Care. If. You. Are. A. “Good.” Protestor. Or. If. You. Are. Sitting. Down.
I’ve seen cops push people out of their wheelchairs. You think they’ll care that you’re sitting down?
The sooner we truly understand this, the better.
Especially because we in the U.S. are facing fascism, whether we are loathe to admit it or not.
Repeat after me:
Cops do not keep us safe.
Who keeps us safe?
WE keep us safe.
Who?
WE.
US.
Together.
Not cops.
Cops make most of us LESS safe. At a protest and lots of other places. Especially when we belong to vulnerable or marginalized populations.
Let’s please, please do what we can to keep each other safe. Or safe-ish.
Let’s please remember that every protestor is on the same side: the side of humanity, justice, liberation, and protecting our neighbors.
Let’s not do the cops’ work for them.
Let’s remember, or learn, that movements for justice have always relied on a variety of tactics.
Let’s protect our comrades who are willing to risk escalation.
Let’s … let’s maybe get a little unruly.
XOXO
At last! Thank you for challenging the aspect of Quakerism that I find most difficult: that of the internalised unconscious prejudice that holds that anything more than polite white dissent is unacceptable. This ignores so much of the reality of peaceful protest as you point out. And by not acknowledging that all other oppressed peoples have had to defend themselves actively, that sometimes violence is an appropriate response to despair and that those who would deny us freedom just find it easier to kill us as we’re sitting down - we are devaluing their and our struggle.
Thanks for writing such a challenging and timely post!