Protest #2

During the last week in the USA and to a lesser extent in other parts of the world there have been loud demonstrations protesting the systemic racism within the US's justice system. I hope that someone, somewhere is planning on looking at these most recent protests to consider their effectiveness. Some will argue that because the State has increased the charges against the police officer who was recorded kneeling on the neck of the individual, the protest has been at least partially successful. I would argue that they have been a dismal failure. I would further argue that virtually all of the protests in the last 20-30 years have been generally unsuccessful. It is true that some protests have generated a positive response from the various governments. But that response has been limited, short term and ineffective in dealing with the systemic issue. Someone needs to examine why.

Two of the most successful protest movement of the 20th century were the Civil Rights movement and the student protest against the Vietnam war.  What successes those movements had were not accidental. Those who wish to protest in 2020 need to understand why.

Rosa Parks' decision to sit at the front of the bus was not totally spontaneous. The roots of her momentous and courageous act lie in part with some of the black soldiers coming home from WWII. Those soldiers had been exposed to other cultures, they had developed new skills, they had developed a sense of their value and they came back determined to change things. As well, there was, especially in the southern US, a very strong network of churches who were committed to change. For a decade after the war, groups coming together to discuss change and strategies to achieve it. There were weekend training sessions, supported in part by those churches, that allowed people to be together and to talk about what they could do. Rosa Parks attended at least one of those weekends. Leaders within the various communities got together, got to know each other. They shared their dreams and their aspirations with each other. It was hard work with no results for years. They were planning and preparing because those individuals knew that to change even a small part of the world was hard work.

The student movement of the 1960s was different. There was not a long history of oppression. In fact, the majority of the students who protested came from the white elite (look at any picture of a protest in the 1960s and see how many people of colour you can count). The students did not have decades to plan or to even find common ground. For the most part, they did not share common life experiences.  But generally, they were successful in getting thousands of young people marching down the streets of various cities across the US, not just one or two times but for a number of times over many years. How?

Francesca Polletta, a sociologist has suggested in one of her books, Freedom Is an Endless Meeting that some homogeneity in terms of philosophy and action was achieved by those who were serious about the need for change, by working very hard at it. They spent countless hours, days arguing about how decisions would be made, why they were doing what they were doing and how they could do it. Informal groups across the country met and argued, debated the issues long before anyone got on the streets. Even though many of these groups had no formal connection to each other - many of them came to the same conclusions about such things as consensus building and community action. They did so because they worked at it.

Both of the above groups, no matter how loosely organized they may have been, knew what they wanted. They had the intellectual resources, the practical training and the sense of "collectivity" that is crucial for any successful social action. Their accomplishments were not an accident. They worked at it. Before any protest can be successful, everyone needs to understand the objective and agree at a basic level of what and how they are going to achieve it. They must all be prepared for the long uphill struggle.

I see no evidence of any of this in the most recent protests.

Protests #1

Even as I sit in my sheltered, privileged semi-isolation it is hard to ignore the anger and frustration that has irrupted south of the border. For far too long it has been too easy for people like me to ignore the issues of privilege and class, pretending that because I do nothing to perpetuate the distinctions between those who have and those who don't - that I have no responsibility. Many people like me, who were not raised in an affluent community, who had to work hard to achieve any sort of financial security (however limited it might be) forget that we may not have been born into the moneyed class - but we have certainly benefitted from the opportunities that were made available. No matter how much energy I may have put into supporting those who were facing special challenges, no matter how many times I spoke out about a specific issue or preached to a community college class of students about the inequities of the system it was never enough.

 But I never knew what to do - I still don't.

I could have given every penny I have earned to some righteous cause, I could have walked in every protest march, I could have chained myself to every building where injustices were perpetuated and nothing would have changed. And of course, that is the great rationalization, the perpetual excuse - "the problem was too big for one person to change -there was no point in me trying".

 In spite of the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness, so we do try to make the small changes, we do speak up, we do try - but then we can go back to our reasonably safe, protected lives where no matter how hard things seem to us, no matter how hard we think we have to work to achieve anything meaningful the fact is that we know that success is possible.

Many of those who have been protesting in the last few days do not know that all things are possible. They have been taught the exact opposite. Nothing is possible, nothing will change, they will always be at the bottom and they need to always, if not afraid, at the very least be very apprehensive of what will happen to them. It is not surprising that the fear, the frustration and the anger is bubbling up to the surface. Given the fact that many of those who are protesting in the streets are the same people who have been most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic both in terms of loss of income and a disproportionate number of infected individuals - one can only wonder why the protests did not happen sooner.

 None of the above is to justify the small numbers of individuals who have used the protest to engage in the destruction of property, looting and other forms of community violence. None of the above is to justify how little I have done to eradicate the gross injustices that have created such anger and frustration.

 Somehow just knowing that does not help very much.

One of the saddest parts of this whole thing is that those who are protesting because they are tired, are sick to death of the constant and profound injustices that exist in the world they live in, are more likely to contract the virus. And some people from their safe, protected and isolated living rooms will say - "it serves them right".