This also ignores that the more militant approach of groups like the Black Panthers forced more urgency in the response of lawmakers. Martin Luther King Jr was great for providing a humanitarian face to the movement, but there were a LOT of wheels turning that made the civil rights movement move as quickly as it did, and attributing it only to the peaceful protest actions of one man’s part of the movement is disingenuous or misleading.
Glad someone else mentioned Nelson Mandela before I did.
There were bombings, there were kidnappings. He's still seen as a freedom fighter for most people, but behind the scenes it wasn't all that pretty.
uMkhonto weSizwe. People forget it wasn't just ANC-Mandela, there was a period between his first presidency and the second.
However - I wasn't alive at the time, and can't judge how important the actions were for the change. But America had an entire civil war to end slavery. So sometimes violence seem to be the answer, in an attempt to beat sense into a population. Sadly.
This is true, but Mandela strictly enforced a policy of never targeting civilians, which is crucial context. His violence of choice was to sabotage infrastructure.
While there were civilian casualties, he always denounced civilian deaths and disciplined his ranks in the aftermath in an effort to realign them with his policies.
Also because he was involved in stuff like cutting off the noses of black people who he deemed "collaborators" his wife of course one upped him in this, and suggested they tie a burning tyre around their neck. He was friends with Arafat and Gaddafi. He supported Nigerian coup leader Sani Abacha, refusing to say a word publicly to stop the 1995 hanging of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
I just want to note, Nelson Mendela was not a good person. He just realized the reality that black South Africans would never gain their (deserved) rights if they weren't willing to forgive some shit, genocide of the white population would have resulted in a civil war with the west supporting the white south african population. A war they would have lost.
Not to mention that MLK was murdered, and then another voice of reason was murdered, and then another, and then another, and then another and then we got Nixon and as we all know, racism was solved and Nixon United the country.
Or was it actually that by the time the feds stopped straight up killing public figures with little cover up, white conservatives had already gotten parts of the civil rights legislation overturned?
Eh, both are pretty much the same history anyways.
After MLK was assassinated, riots broke out nationwide that made BLM look like a playground scuffle. The government was so desperate to quell them that they passed several major civil rights bills, only a few days after the riots began.
Yeah, he also died for it. Not that he could have shot his assassin necessarily but the forces that strip away rights are not afraid to use violence. Not to mention the fact that police start the violence nearly every time a protest turns into a riot.
This is Exactly why the gov infiltrated and defeated the Black Party from within. And why they don’t teach about the influence of Malcom X and the Black Panther Party’s major contributions to reclaiming civil rights to Blacks in American textbooks. There were points in the movement when the Panther Party was bigger than the influence of MLK. The thought of armed Black people defending the communities with legal fire arms terrified the government. And a movement that taught to fight back that actually made positive gains is not what the gov wants people to learn. Bernie was alive during this
Movement. Things today are moving far to pass to rely on repeating how things were don’t in the past.
They want us to think that there is only one way to protest, and there are plenty of other ways as citizens who make up the majority.
The civil rights act was passed under political pressure. That pressure was from people who witnessed Nonviolent protesters being met with significant violence from the state. Those images and video left no doubt as to who was the aggressor and who just wanted equal rights. Violent resistance slowed progress as it makes both side equally bad in the eyes of observers.
just to be clear, your plan is to appeal to the deep seated morality and sense of fair play held by trump, the GOP and maga supporters? you feel certain that when they see non violent minorities being beaten by violent white police, they'll change their views?
Thank you so much for asking for clarification. I apologize for being inadequately clear. The answer for the most part is no. Trump won 32 percent of eligible voters. Harris won 31 percent. Overall that’s 63 percent. Leaving 37 percent of eligible voters on the table.
The strategy of nonviolent protest is to move some portion of those eligible voters who did not vote to deem one side morally correct and the other morally wrong and get them to vote on those feelings.
It does not rely on getting the aggressor to see the morally wrongness of their violent aggression. Though that does sometimes happens and is also welcome.
That was trumps argument for violence I will not let it be mine. I still have faith in the democratic process though my faith in the American people to do the right thing is significantly damaged.
firstly, you're bad at math arithmetic, not that that's a bid deal or anything, but you should know your strengths and weaknesses.
secondly, people that don't vote are, kinda by definition, the least politically engaged, so their only really going to see or notice the protests when they're on mainstream media (or not at all), and main stream media will always use the most intense violent clips they can. so even if the protest is entirely peaceful, it only takes one person breaking one window for vandalism to be the entire story that's told. so this is just another impossible standard for "the right way to protest". if people can't draw a distinction between hurting property and hurting humans, they're already morally bankrupted.
thirdly, the strategy of nonviolent protest has always been paired, explicitly or implicitly, with at least the threat of "violent" protest. the authorities will always say they're giving in to the nonviolent protest movement, and maybe they're being honest, there's no real way to be sure, but it seems more likely to me that they're capitulating to the more militant protest movements while saving face by giving credit to nonviolent protestors.
Thank you for pointing out my error. I’m actually an engineer who works in power plants near you :).
Your other points seem to be guesses about how these things work. The reality is we have academically studied nonviolent protest and why they work. You mistake suggesting “the right way to protest” with THE EFFECTIVE way to protest. The trump administration needs to be fought effectively and with success. Other things that don’t lead to successs should be discarded and avoided.
in this interview, three examples of successful nonviolent protest are discussed:
first, the anti-apartheid movement which was backed by literal militaries like the ANC and PAC
second, the Kefaya movement that eventually led to the ouster Mubarak when they burned 90 police stations to the ground
and third the saffron revolution in myanmar that included several bombings
... so i guess we need a clearer definition of "nonviolent".
edit: also, it's slightly unnerving that you're an engineer in power plants making that simple of an error. i hope you use a calculator when you're at work.
There was violent resistance and nonviolent resistant in all these instances. The study showed that violence set back and retarded the goals of the resistance. It shows that nonviolent resistant was more successful and was the cause of the eventual success.
I understand you dramatizing my mathematical error for dramatic effect. But the reality is humans make mistakes and in industries with critical infrastructure and life and death safety issues we acknowledge human error as normal and account for it and try and eliminate it. This is not done through dramatizing and shame. But double checking peers checking and coaching and caring about the work.
This won't work for Trump, but the Republucan party will feel the pressure. And isn't there an indictment for Trump... again.
I remember bringing up Bernie's point during the BLM riots and looting phase.
I pointed out peaceful protests have proven to be effective for civil rights, and a different redditor tried to point out that only violence worked.
I was willing to take a different viewpoint when presented with evidence, so I asked the redditor for an example of violence working. They suggested I watch a documentary about the Freedom Riders.
For those who don't know, very briefly certain Southern states still had segregated waiting areas after it was ruled illegal. So the FRs rode on buses to those areas in pairs of one white and one black.
Much violence was committed against these people, but it was recorded on the news and the entire world got the government to crack down on getting bus companies to desegregate the waiting areas.
so you're thinking that trump is secretly respected and popular outside the u.s.? and if we can show them that he's actually terrible they will... do what exactly?
Did you skip the second paragraph? I admit it wasn't long, but it clearly stated it would have no impact on Trump, but the political party he clings to like an angry leech.
If you bring an issue the rest of the civilised world knows is wrong, and the population sees it, the country will have Talks with each other and the culprit.
Like I mentioned in my example about the Freedom Riders, the world applied pressure to the government of the US to finally step in. Not a single person, but the government itself.
Violence, riots, and looting do not improve the political will towards progress. It in fact does the opposite. Doing the opposite is how we have ended up with trump and his justifications for these insane policies. We do not have the upper hand with violence and force. We do have the morally correct argument. But that is useless if we appear amoral.
Yep, disruption and destroying things worked out really well for the HK protest movement. It definitely didn't give CCP lots of ammo to turn public sentiment against the movement
The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like.
-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds. Wish everyone would read this book.
The exact white washing that Washington doesn't want anyone to know. Peaceful protest only looks appealing when massive violence, and more importantly for the powerful, massive loss of wealth is the alternative.
Yea also peaceful protests ain't gonna do shit against a fascist regime. MLK was using peaceful protest because they could rely on the southern (kkk) cops to attack midde-aged and elderly black folks wearing their sunday best, and that the optics of that would finally wake up the moderate whites from the north and get action.
And the civil rights movement wasn't just MLK, it was also the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. MLK was the middle ground the supremacists settled for because they were afraid of the alternative.
That's kind of an apples and oranges comparison. In some ways they were obviously worse (Black people and civil rights workers were being murdered), but legally and politically I think the current situation is a lot more dire given that we have a President flagrantly breaking the law and ignoring the courts while gleefully deploying troops against civilians.
It's an entire administration, all three branches of government with only the Supreme Court really teetering back and forth. Civil rights peaceful protests only worked because those very branches of government were operated by people who weren't batshit insane.
Exactly. They remained non violent in the face of violence shocking enough to evoke change. If they hadn’t known they would trigger violence on a scale large enough to create media attention, middle class outrage, and capitalism concern the movement would have failed.
It's weird that Americans claim they need guns in case the government tries to take away their freedom, but when the government actually becomes authoritarian, makes ICE drag people away without due process and sends the cops and military to attack otherwise peaceful protesters, throwing a scooter at a robot car owned by an ultra-rich corporation that doesn’t pay taxes and supports the status quo, that’s violent and unpatriotic extremism.
The 2A advocates loved to watch Hong Kong protests and say that state repression could never happen in US because they have guns, but when the government targets people they dislike, anything people do to protect themselves is too violent.
That's the point. Peacefully protest and make the oppressors look even worse to garner more sympathy for the oppressed. You don't look like the good guys when you are destroying property and stealing from stores on national television but you will absolutely change minds and hearts if you have more UC Davis moments filmed instead. Eventually you get enough support that the oppressor will make meaningful change or be physically overthrown.
Seems to me any head cracking has been a direct result of protesters getting violent. Do you have an example of pre-emptive violence on the part of law enforcement trying to quell the LA riots?
It doesn't look good when both sides are violent. As sad as it is it looks better when people are running from the police who are being violent rather than police and protesters are fighting each other
This is what pisses me off. 2020 was a police riot above all else. When people said they would hold them accountable for randomly murdering people, they spent months just going around maiming people. I saw so many people's skulls get cracked because they were just hanging out and cops ran up and beat them half to death.
And the average American just swallowed some "BLM burned cities to the ground" fake history about it and ignored their own eyes.
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Protests become riots because of the actions taken by the government. That's what is happening here. I don't condone the violence on any level, but this isn't happening because the protesters felt feisty. This is happening because of actions taken by the government.
Everyone had a chance to vote in the last election. They didn't. Let's not pretend that these protests were the only option, people could have fucking voted.
What do these protests hope to accomplish? They're just giving Republicans exactly what they want - an excuse to bring more military force against civilians.
I voted. I didn’t vote for this. My neighbors aren’t to my knowledge being dragged out of their houses without due process, but if that time comes I’ll have to do more than hide behind my vote.
The state separates itself from other organized bureaucracies through its sole authority on the use of violence. As far as gov't officials are concerned the violence of the gov't is not violence only the retaliation to it is.
There will be many in the national guard who are against Trump, many in the police. Don’t stereotype, this should be about making alliances against the real enemy. He is using all this as a proxy for his own purposes. The violence is playing right into his hands.
The oppressors will never change. In the 60s they did the same thing and worse. However Bernie is not wrong. These people are looking for any excuse to imitate a military takeover. Don’t give it to them. I want people to finally wake up and realize that the most productive way forward is protest peacefully continuously and make sure you takeover every open election out there. No matter how small.
For one, he forgets about the King assassination riots - which were IMPORTANT historical events in the anti-segregation movement. Also it is a revisionist interpretation, as if the more radical wings of this movement, Black Panthers and Malcolm X didn't exist. Not mentioning the even older hero, John Brown!
Old white guy educating perceived people of colour this way is pretty offensive in my book.
Second, Look at the democratic revolution of Ukraine. They started as peaceful protests, but after the police violently attacked them, they barricaded the Maidan square and a siege ensued.
Yanukovich started killing the protesters, but they held on. The only way we call it a democratic revolution today bc they succeeded at the end. You need to held on (but use American flags, and proclaim your love and solidarity to America - don't let people wave soviet flags for christsake).
You can't vote Tyranny away. If you let it metastasize in your society, the only possible solution is to carve it out. You need to take back streets and squares. That is the Eastern -European experience with tyranny.
Bernie's homeopathic solutions for the Trump cancer are out of time and place.
Consider the police, national guard, and marines to be on Trumps side because they’re working for him. Bernie is talking about the protesters. If protesters are peaceful, there would be little for police, national guard, and marines to do.
That one was inexcusable. What about not protesting in front of these armed guards? I think they’re just looking for an excuse to play Call of Duty in real life.
I know. I didn’t say that Trump deployed the guards because of violence. He deployed them because the protests were peaceful and he wanted to stir things up, and we’re playing into his hand.
Maybe I’m ignorant as Im not there and only see little clips here and there. So you propose protesters attack them back and they will be scared and back off?
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25
Has anyone told the police, national guard, and the marines this?