Black Man Thinkin'

Protestin’ or Profilin’?

Political protest in America has a long history, being the essence of the nation’s founding; 18th-century English colonists dissociated themselves politically from the British Crown and fought the most powerful military of the day to win their liberty. And political protest has remained an important form of national expression.

American political protest is somewhat unique; where protests in other countries often threaten the government’s existence, American protests generally do not put forward a serious alternative to the Constitution. Whether the Whiskey Rebellion, the Abolition Movement, the Civil War, the Labor Movement, Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights, Viet Nam antiwar, the Tea Party, etc., American political protests, even violent ones, normally seek to adjust the government’s attitude, not seek to bring it down, the Civil War being an exception.

Beginning with the nation’s founding, American political protest has generally involved risk. The Declaration of Independence concludes with this sentence:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

At the signing, Benjamin Franklin reportedly said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately,” indicating the risk the Founders accepted. Risk has accompanied American political protesters ever since:

• Those in the Whiskey Rebellion risked a military confrontation with President Washington,
• The early American Labor Movement risked extinction, with President Grover Cleveland calling in federal troops against striking railroad workers,
• Most abolitionists abandoned moral suasion after the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act and chose riskier pursuits, including John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry,
• Civil Rights participants, regardless of color, risked social stigma, financial reversal, incarceration, physical attack, and murder,
• Viet Nam War protesters often put themselves at physical risk, including the 4 student protesters who were killed at Kent State in Ohio in 1970.

Even nonviolent Tea Party protesters were at risk. Their 2010 political success brought scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service, which can incarcerate and financially ruin citizens, with consequences often coming before proof that a citizen did anything wrong.

Nevertheless, since the Civil Rights Movement, a high-water mark for modern American political protest risk, protesters seem to have less skin in the game.

For example, the Occupy Movement was disruptive, but suffered little backlash from those they targeted. They protested Wall Street about its “obscene” profits; in “retaliation”, Wall Street hired them. The Occupiers challenged and irritated the governments in some of America’s major cities. In retaliation, governments turned a blind eye to acts like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luq4NTSK50M[/youtube]

Though the Occupy Movement included by rape, assault, murder, tuberculosis, arson, etc., the protests went unchecked for quite some time…until the public outcry, unlike the protesters, could no longer be ignored. When all was done, the Occupiers risked little, changed less, and became unpopular in America and elsewhere.

However, more popular protests seem to have the same amount of risk and change.

In South Carolina, Roy Costner IV ripped up his Pickens County School District-approved valedictorian’s speech in favor of a recital of the Lord’s prayer. The crowd erupted in response to protest of the school district’s new policy to prohibit prayer at graduation ceremonies.

Did Costner risk anything?

School district spokesman John Eby said, “The bottom line is: We’re not going to punish students for expressing their religious faiths.” Clemson University, where Costner plans to be this fall, did not rescind its acceptance of the incoming freshman. And the outpouring of positive sentiment was quite strong. No harm, no foul.

And what did it change? The Pickens County School District did not rescind the no-prayer policy; would not that have been the point of the protest? However, perhaps change, in response to Costner’s protest, happened half a continent away.

When Valedictorian Remington Reimer began to ad lib his graduation address, Joshua (TX) High School let him speak; they simply cut power to the microphone. They did not sanction his words, they controlled who heard them, perhaps a more frightening prospect. And Mr. Reimer is now off to the Naval Academy. Regarding risk, again, no harm, no foul.

And high schoolers are not the only low-risk protesters.

The North Carolina NAACP chapter has organized “Moral Monday” protests against the state’s General Assembly, which now has a Republican majority, for the past 7 weeks, resulting in nearly 500 arrests at the state capitol. But what is this likely to change? The Governor and the majority of the Legislature, both Republican, won elections. So is the NAACP and its supporters protesting the government, or the majority of their neighbors who vote? We saw how such protests wrought governmental change in Wisconsin. Why should the result differ in a state that is even more “red.” Again, no change and no risk…did anybody do anything to anyone who tried to unseat Scott Walker?

And what is at risk for “Moral Monday” protesters, after the NAACP also buses the protesters to the capitol and provides them snacks? An hour in a detention center, before the NAACP pays their bail and provides legal representation?

Once all is said and done, real protest looks more like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPrHwmiUMH0[/youtube]

or this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nXT8lSnPQ[/youtube]

Only when people would rather be harmed, than ruled in a particular way, does political protest have honest power. Even nonviolent leaders like Ghandi and King understood that successful protest meant blood; they simply chose the side which would shed none. Today, people are more likely to be seen AT a protest, engaged in meaningless acts of no consequence to them, than involved IN a protest, where taking a stand is neither fun nor free. King David once said, “I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. (2 Samuel 24:24)

If your defiance against what is wrong is an enjoyable endeavor that brings neither harm to you nor requires anything of value from you, then that is not protestin’; that is profilin’.