The is a question I keep asking myself over and over and over again and that question is how many of those who protested over the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner stayed home and didn't vote on Election Day in November of 2014? How many of these protesters organized boycotts & picketed local business known to support the the officers of those who killed Brown & Garner and supported causes and shared the racist mindset of those officers?
In other words, were these demonstrations more parade than protest? My personal feeling is that it was the former for as of now nothing has changed and nothing seems about to change anytime. Now I will never be critical of people hitting the streets in protest against injustice but unless those protests are backed up by the waging of economic war against the powers that be who's conduct and attitudes led directly to the injustices that sparked these protests, nothing will change anytime soon, if at all.
I recall an incident in New Orleans back in late 1990 when I served as a marshal in a protest against the pending first Gulf War. As I led a column a young African American man ran up next to me waving and grinning from ear to ear. I was impressed by his apparent enthusiasm and said as much to him until he said "Oh I don't care about the war. I just want to be on TV man!"
I hate to say it but the fact that there has been no major followup in terms of administering an economic hit on the power structure and the fact that voter turnout in key urban areas by people of color was so low, convinces me that many who marched were motivated not by a desire to effect meaningful & lasting change but rather out of a desire to use those demonstrations as a means to get their 15 minutes of fame; to appear on TV.
That is the impression I have gotten from these past few months and it is certainly the impression I got from the Wall Street protests of several years ago. I have yet to see how this current crop of protesters have incorporated the lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, of the Sit In Movement & Freedom Rides of 1961, of the Birmingham demonstrations of the Spring of 1963, and the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965; namely the combining of peaceful nonviolent protests with the waging of economic warfare against the powers that be in order to effect meaningful, lasting change.
Yes, these protests have provided people with a peaceful means of dissipating their anger to the point where widespread violence is far less likely but if it stops there; if our public expressions of anger over injustice remains more parade than protest, then these injustices will continue no matter how many marches there are.
I'm sick and tired of hearing token talk; of people raging on social media and talk about how bad things are and yet finding a reason, any reason, to stay home & not vote on Election Day, and then conveniently blaming the Koch Brothers and GOP for rigging the system. You know in the old days, black people flooded the polling places even though they knew damn well that not only would they likely be turned but also be the victims of violence and even suffer death.
I haven't seen that kind of devil may care dedication on the part of these protesters today. Their forebears at least showed up no matter what the powers that be did. Unlike the case with so many today, they certainly did not use the barriers put up to prevent them from voting as an excuse not to try to vote at all and they certainly did not care what other people thought or said about them when they decided to wage economic war against that very power structure which oppressed them.
So again, what will it be; parade or protest. If it is the former then we need only continue to do what we are doing now; to flood the streets chanting "No Justice! No Peace!" the next time a Michael Brown or Eric Garner is killed and then once the media attention span has run its course and the TV cameras have been taken away, return home and resume our lives as though nothing has happened; leaving our unjust system intact and waiting to claim its next victim.
If it is real protest in which we are engaged, then we will do what our forebears did and combine our marching feet with the inflicting of real economic pain on the powers that be and exercising our true power at the polls by voting in numbers that reflect our actual strength. The time for talk in general and for token talk in particular, is long past over. If we are really serious about change then we must work for it and that work involves the combining the use of economic & political might (voting) with nonviolent demonstrations. Otherwise, all we will do is continue to march in parade whenever anything bad happens; our chants of "No Justice! No Peace!" full of sound & fury but in the end signifying and changing absolutely nothing.
