As unrest erupts around the world following the killing of a black man, George Floyd, by a white police officer, even some peaceful protests have descended into chaos, calling into question the effectiveness of violence when it comes to spurring social change.
“There is certainly more evidence that peaceful protests are more successful because they build a broader coalition,” he says. Gordana Rabrenovicassociate professor of sociology and director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict.
Who is responsible for inciting this violence—the protesters or the police—is another discussion entirely. But, Rambrenovic says, one thing is clear: for a movement to gain support and inspire lasting change, peace and consensus are essential.
“Violence can scare away your potential allies. You need people on the fringes to say, 'This is my thing too,'” he says. “For people who say 'All lives matter,' that's true, but not all lives are at risk. You have to convince them.”
However, it is not always easy, or even possible, for groups of oppressed people to follow this moral path, says Rabrenovic.
“The system doesn't work for them,” he says. “They may think the only way to deal with the system is to destroy it.”
Black people in the US are not alone three times more likely to be killed by the police by whites, but it is also less likely to be armed than whites during these interactions with the police.
For black people who experience violence at the hands of the people and institutions that are supposed to protect them, the question is, “If they use violence, why not use violence?” says Rambrenovic. “They know violence works, otherwise they wouldn't use it.”
Exactly how that violence manifests is another matter entirely, but, says Rambrenovic, one thing is almost always true: violence is the spark that ignites the movement.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s is an example. The general ethos of Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement was peace. But the catalyst was violence—hundreds of years of lynching, legalized inequality, and oppression.
In fact, peace was used strategically during the civil rights movement to highlight the violence suffered by blacks in the US. The protesters were deliberately peaceful to prevent any question about who started the violence and whether it was justified. The results were unmistakable images of peaceful black protesters being attacked by dogs and beaten by police.
“Even peaceful civil rights movements are violent because violence is what motivates people to take action,” says Rabrenovic. Translating a violent history into a peaceful future is the hard part.
“Violence may be the fastest way to achieve your goals, but to maintain your victory, you will need to use coercion and have some kind of mechanism in place that keeps people in constant fear of punishment,” he says. . “And nobody wants to live like that.”
While the George Floyd protests are a good place to start, protests alone are not enough to sustain an entire movement, Rambrenovich says. “We need to give people other tools.”
Voting is an example. “We have to vote,” he says. “We are the government”
One could argue that for Blacks and other disenfranchised people in the US, the vote it seems futile. But Rambrenovic counters: “If voting didn't work, there would be no voter suppression.”
“You can't oppress everybody,” he says. “That's why it's important to build a broad coalition, to bring as many people as you can.”
We cannot go on living with only ourselves in mind. We need each other, he says. And the protests are just the beginning.
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