Protester perfectly explains why nonviolent protesting is not always effective

[DonViejo]

"Now that we've burned down buildings...now all of the sudden everybody wants to hear us"

JOANNA ROTHKOPF

On Tuesday, MSNBC correspondent Thomas Roberts spoke with a protester, identified only as Danielle, who perfectly explained the problem with pundits advocating nonviolent demonstrations in response to Freddie Gray’s death.

“My question to you is, when we were out here protesting all last week for six days straight peacefully, there were no news cameras, there were no helicopters, there was no riot gear and nobody heard us,” she said. “So now that we’ve burned down buildings and set businesses on fire and looted buildings, now all of the sudden everybody wants to hear us.”

“Why does it take a catastrophe like this in order for America to hear our cry?” Danielle continued. “I mean, enough is enough. We’ve had too many lives lost at the hands of police officers. Enough is enough.”

Watch the clip below, courtesy of MSNBC:

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http://www.salon.com/2015/04/29/protester_perfectly_explains_why_nonviolent_protesting_is_not_always_effective/

[bravenak]

1. Exactly.

Nobody really notices until the riots start. Change that and there will be no riots.

[Vattel]

2. Point taken.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Kick

I don't agree with the method - but she's making VERY clear the level and intensity of frustration!

[merrily]

4. IMO economic boycott of private companies is the form of nonviolent protest that is most effective.

That diminishes as more and more companies are both bigger and bigger conglomerates and doing business globally.

Peaceful demonstrations against government action? It's nice if 1000 people show up on Boston Common to protest the war in Iraq, but we kid ourselves if we imagine government is making decisions and policy based on that. I think there has to be real fear generated somehow. JMO

Does this mean I encourage violence? No. I am just calling things as I see them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Yesteday I covered a vigil in this town

I was the only media outlet. You can bet that if the reflection suddenly became a burned library and dead or injured other people, I would have been joined.

She's got a definite point.

I know tonight there is a march planned, and while that one has a far better potential for "fun." that will attract cameras, I will have to nurse a tweaked knee. But the dynamics between the local cops and local organizers are such that yes, there is that potential to attract media. (Bleeds, leads)

[libdem4life]

6. The thin veneer of "racial equality" is comfortable for whites, who don't understand it. But it's

mighty thin and largely ineffective. For a minority professional to join the Mainstream as a policeman or public official, they usually have had to become "as their white peers" in order to "fit in". Some look at the Black Mayor and Chief of Police and many officers and just don't get it. They, like most, had to learn Both Cultures...one at work, and one at home.

Like Fred Astaire used to say...Men and Women can both dance, but women have to do it backwards and in high heels. It's also appropriate to fill in the blank for Any Minority.

[treestar]

7. Violence doesn't solve a thing

It gets attention. "Hear us" is a strange way to take it. And peaceful protests do too get attention.

[leveymg]

10. Nonviolence is a tactic and a principle When it doesn't work, ignored communities seek alternatives

That's simply a sad fact of political life. Violence for its own sake is an evil that destroys the oppressed and the oppressors.

[christx30]

14. Quote from JFK

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

[closeupready]

16. If violence destroys both side, then why are good guys ever violent?

And doesn't the use of violence by good guys make them bad guys instead?

[Behind the Aegis]

8. ...

[leveymg]

9. Resistance movements often don't "work" until they make business as usual impossible

and start imposing costs on the elites for their unwillingness to negotiate in earnest with the insurgency.

[dreamnightwind]

11. Here's a different take on this

I have noticed, watching some of the mainstream coverage of Baltimore, how much attention the media is paying to the riots and property destruction, and how little attention is now being paid to the root issue which is that Freddie is dead, killled by police, in a long series and clearly established pattern of police violence against African Americans.

It made me think about the terrorists like Al Queada and ISIS. They are also rising up against a system that has, in their eyes at least, systematically impoverished them and left them under the rule of illegitimate governments propped up by western military force. Nobody paid much attention, if any, to those people before they started killing people.

But how often, in all the attention given to terrorism, do you ever hear discussion of the root causes of the terrorism, and how to address them so the people have good lives and don't feel the need to rise up? Prettty much never, that's how often, it's all about how to "eliminate" them. The terrorists are getting a lot of attention, but only as villains, not as people who have legitimate grievances whose causes should be addressed.

This is an analogy, not a statement of equivalence between terrorist and domestic uprisings, the point is not their similarities or differences. It's that there are similar dynamics to the oppression, the people's response, and the state's response to their action, as it all relates to the root causes of the chain of events getting fixed.

I have seen very little evidence that violence brings remedies to the root causes, it's almost like the people in positions of power, once it gets violent, cease to see anything but the violent and unlawful behavior of criminals, rather than people whose problems are real and should be heard.

So personally I think non-violent civil disobediance that is well thought out to disrupt business as usual, carried out in a way that presents your grievances rather than your rage, is a more effective strategy to win concessions from power.

[treestar]

12. Very thoughtful

That's why the riots aren't such a great thing. Everyone has forgotten the police brutality. Riots won't solve that - heck it will give them more excuses for claiming it's so dangerous out there and they need to shoot people to protect themselves.

[kairos12]

13. In America the Press doesn't pay attention until property, not people, are threatened.

[closeupready]

15. DAMN. She nailed it, didn't she.