Anti-discrimination Movement

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Categories: Reflections

PEOPLE! Last night in Berkeley we had a thought. Do we want two weeks of riots or two or more months of peaceful protests? What is more important to the anti-discrimination movement? Banks I could give a fuck for, but local businesses, non-corporate? Not too sure what’s happening there. It needs to be politely explained to the uninitiated the importance of blockades, how they protect us against incarceration and police violence. There is now a larger youth contingency, and student contingency than previously. Random violence defeats our motivations for a free or freer society. Smashing windows could discourage people who would otherwise be invigorated by the anti-discrimination movement. Also it could help to explain to the uninitiated the tactics / methodology behind police violence. We are especially polarized now, try to keep it peaceful!!!

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2 Responses to “Anti-discrimination Movement”

  1. GreenEngineer

    Correct. Practically speaking, violent protests will not be successful at this stage because the only people who will participate are those who (1) wish to engage in violence for essentially selfish reasons (emotional release) and (2) those who no longer feel they have anything to lose.

    We do not want our revolution to be powered by people in the first category. And there are not yet enough people in the second category to create the revolution that we need. The vast majority of the middle class are fully engaged in trying to desperately hang onto what they have, and they have not realized that their cause is ours.
    Eventually, in another decade or two, after a few more rounds of financial crisis and the associated displacement of people from the middle class, the ranks of the dispossessed will grow. So, one option is just to wait. But there’s a lot of lost time and a lot of unnecessary misery down that road.

    The other option is to build a protest movement that is inclusive rather than divisive, and that encourages participation by people who are not yet ready to “burn it all down”. That’s less “fun” than running around smashing windows – it’s hard work. But it might actually generate a protest movement large enough to make changes rather than just make headlines.