The Right to Protest is under attack-Engaged af
America was founded by a raucous group of white men that rose up against the King of England by throwing a bunch of tea into the harbor and breaking the law because they no longer wanted to pay taxes. Resistance is a part of the DNA of America. That being said, throughout history, we have also seen what befalls various groups of people outside of the white male category when they try to engage in a revolt against oppression. Native Americans that tried to defend their land and their way of life were scalped, beaten and placed on reservations. Enslaved Africans that tried to revolt against their enslavers were tortured and then lynched. Black people fighting non-violently to end segregation were hosed, jailed, beaten and lynched. Hell, before his assassination Martin Luther King Jr. was labeled as an enemy of the state and polls revealed him to be one of the most hated men in America. As much as white America wants to claim MLK Jr. as a model of the right kind of civil disobedience, he was assassinated for his role in disrupting the status quo and forcing America to take a real hard look at its claims of democracy and freedom for all while upholding a legalized system of abuse and discrimination.
Fast-forward now some decades later and the same language and smear campaigns that were used against protestors, anti-war activists and thought leaders are being rinsed and repeated everyday in mainstream media and in the halls of power. As anti-war protests grip college campuses nationwide, politicians and mainstream journalists alike are doing their best to delegitimize the movement by referring to all that disagree with universities and colleges sending millions to Israel as anti-semitatic, violent thugs. Language is important. By referring to these college protestors as terrorist sympathizers you can write off their grievances, dismiss their movement and dispose of them the way you would any threat–with brutal force. So, when we saw militarized tanks and police in full riot gear marching through college campuses, in some cases shooting rubber bullets into encampments, many hailed this act of police brutality as necessary. Why? Were the college students armed? Had they built a gallows and threatened to hang the presidents of their universities if their demands weren’t met? No, but that is exactly what happened on January 6, 2021 when the peaceful transfer of power was disrupted by a largely white male mob directed by Donald Trump and guess what happened to those insurrectionists? Well, they got to go home with many not being arrested until months and years later.
In a press conference President Joe Biden said that America “guarantees the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos”. The question is who gets to decide what is chaos? When de-segregationist went into white’s only restaurants and sat at lunch counters many referred to that as chaos. Was it? Or did the violent reactions by white supremacists cause the real chaos? The status quo never wants to be disrupted. As famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters.” President Joe Biden got it wrong. There has never been a time when protest hasn’t caused chaos for those that wanted their power and privilege to remain intact. The reality is America is shifting rapidly. The masses don’t want to be placated with the notions of bravery and fighting for freedom when our money is going to rob others of their self determination. The status quo wants us to revere the founding of this nation and yet ignore the hypocrisy of its creed. Protest is of the most American values we have and if we allow this right to be denied or silenced what will they take away next? There has never been a student-led movement in this country that was on the wrong side of history, so maybe this time we would do well to listen to them.
