"Peaceful" is how some people describe other people getting brutalized by the cops. So long as you don't fight back, it was a "peaceful" protest. Your cause can only be admirable if you are willing to absorb violence indefinitely and never see your demands realized. Real cute.
That's what a lot of liberals expect of people living in struggle: that they take inspiring symbolic action, absorb any and all violence respectably, without retaliation, and then accept that the injustice will continue. There's a reason people tend to resent that.
Some will say they don't expect people to accept it, but when you expect people to stay within the lines, even if doing so does not work, you are expecting them to accept the situation, and keep the status quo intact. At best you are saying they can *express* their dismay.
I am not encouraging any particular form of protest rt now. Communities will make their own choices based on what they are up against, and I hope they do so with full info about the dangers of winding up in a cage as the 2nd wave hits. I hope people stay as safe as they can.
What I will never do is treat people who are being murdered at random, who are staring down the potential end of their lives & liberty, resisting that violence like they are the problem. Whether it's a banner drop or a broken window, I am with the people. Always with the people.
I hope that those of you who once held that view, but abandoned it out of fear, will reclaim it in the months ahead. The law is not a moral instrument. The system is a serial killer, a rapist and a force of annihilation, and the status quo is a death march.
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