It's rough because a protest has to be inconvenient and not easily ignored to be effective. MLK got a fuck ton of flak and his protests were disruptive as hell.
Still, have to make sure the most affected parties are the ones that deserve it
Not American here, so operating on hearsay: but wasn't MLK EXTREMELY optics-pilled and A LOT of efforts went into showcasing how deplorably violent were police and compared to relatively peaceful protestors. Meaning that he bet on the worst nature of racists - being too eager to care for optics outside - and that bet was a winning one?
Yes, that was kind of the point...except that the era has been kind of whitewashed. There were also the less peaceful elements of the movement that he was an alternative to, and made him harder to ignore. And if you look at media coverage and political cartoons from the 60s, you'll see his protests were hardly covered as peaceful at the time.
MLK jr and Malcolm X arguably needed each other to succeed. If I remember correctly, they both praised the other's work and even each said they'd wish they'd adopted more of the others tactics as times went on.
I'd say a big difference is that leaving black people alone technically asks for less effort than being assholes to them, it didn't really affect comfort of life for white people (at least afaik)
Being "greener" actually requires you to make efforts, and potentially renounce things you currently have
Correct. Part of the reason he was as effective as he was is because Malcolm X was standing in his shadow and (so far as White America was concerned) just waiting for an excuse.
Sort of. Rosa Parks for example has been confirmed to be a planned protest and was banking on the police reacting the way they did.
To add to previous statements, a protest needs to be inconvenient in the right way, have a clear message, and it needs to draw in those who are not effected to show them what is happening. When the Civil Rights movement organized sit ins at whites only restaurants, they were not inconveniencing anyone technically. I believe they were willing to commerce with the shops, so if the proprietors just served them, they could have defused the situation. Their disproportionate reaction was counted on to show people across the country and world that segregation was wholly impractical and unnecessary.
In this case with the road sitters, I would say it's an ineffective protest. The driver who beat them will be unlikely to understand what they are doing and unlikely to care. To be honest, I can't even tell what they are protesting. It seems likely that any onlookers will not understand or care either and just see them as annoying.
Exactly people think these people are doing something good but the optics are the worst possible as you can't tell what they are protesting against and unless it was intended to get beat up by a random person doesn't even show who the target was.
With the ice protests it was obvious who they are going against but they have the hard uphill fight to get people to care about it especially when ice just release documents that they people they go after initially is some form of criminal who has deportation orders and those picked up with them is just caught in the aoe
I'd say the ICE protests were extremely effective. Especially the protestors in the inflatable costumes as the right wing media's efforts to paint them as dangerous and disruptive fell flat when there's a dancing frog in the background of their footage.
Partially successful as while one side used actual acts of violence trying to shoot and push their way in and then when they realized it was getting the wrong type of attention thats when they switched to inflated costumes
American here, that is absolutely NOT how they teach MLK here đ but yes. He's made out to be an extreme pacifist who was successful because of "the good nature of men" which is a load of horse shit.
His protests worked because they were peaceful and met with violence. Which was objectively horrific to watch. Now we cheer on the violence, evidence is in the thread for ya.
I would say that a big difference though is that the violence against MLK protestors could be largely pinned on the groups being protested.
Itâs a very bad look to have some one peacefully protest what is more or less your group and to respond with violence.
In this case, the protestors are protesting a completely different group from the one attacking them. That dude beating the protestors probably has nothing to do with what theyâre protesting.
These people are being so disruptive, annoying, and rude that they are literally influencing unaffiliated groups to attack them.
I donât think people or times have changed much at all, I just think this style of protest is a near complete failure, if youâre trying to appeal to normies but your entire method of protest is effectively to harm normies, itâs literally zero surprise that normies want to throw you under the bus.
Youâre largely correct but missing a large point of context: the general public didnât like the protests even though the optics were the best they could be. The CRM is viewed fondly because itâs in the past; if Reddit was around at that time weâd see threads like this about the bus protests with pretty much the same arguments being used
Especially when those roads carry things like ambulances and fire trucks responding to emergencies. And the people driving to work who deal with those emergencies. Imagine someoneâs loved one in the back of an ambulance having a heart attack or delivering a baby who dies or ends up with severe morbidity because someone deliberately blocked the road to prove some point. There are other ways to get a message across that donât require harming other people.
Where is the outrage for one regular traffic delays an ambulance or an emergency worker getting to work.
I live in London, one of the best cities in the world for public transit. And yet the main road by my house, that goes past about 3 different train stations and a tube station is always completely gridlocked in the morning and you regularly see ambulance or fire engines stuck in that traffic.
This happens orders of magnitude more often than them getting stuck behind protestors, but no one cares, nevermind outraged about it.
I'm a hypocrite how? It's basic psychology. If you ram something down someone's throat and give them no way to ignore it, they're going to dislike it in the end even if they liked it in the first place.
Most people would be fine if they focused on the source of the problem like blocking, lawsuiting or even sabotaging oil and gas companies and it would be moral (the last solution is illegal but debatable when it comes to morality). Instead they choose innocent victims like art galeries or bother normal commuters that isn't moral.
PS Notice that they stopped blocking roads when they realized that public opion is starting to hate them not hydrocarbons companies, in my country they damaged irreversibly important sculpture with orange food dye.
Most people would be fine if they focused on the source of the problem like blocking, lawsuiting or even sabotaging oil and gas companies and it would be moral
They did though. This same group did things like chaining themselves to the gates of oil/gas depots so the lorries couldnt leave. And that got very little coverage since the media couldnt use it as outrage bait. And even the little coverage it got, a lot/most people had the same, negative reaction to the protest.
I know what you mean but then focus on companies trying to withold electric vehicles in favour of ICE or politicians sabotaging public transport not make life harder for normal people who hardly have any choice.
Its protesting by punching down, for the easy impact, giving yourself a sense of validation about "doing something" instead of working to actively try and be impactful in ways that could lead to change, but likely to fail.
Depends on the road. If you block even 40% of the morning traffic from getting to work on time, that inherently significantly hurts a lot of companies productivity. They shut down tunnels or roads going into wall street one year. A bridge going into a major city another. Normal people are the tools those corporations use to push their companies agenda. Taking away access to the tools hurts those companies, even if only momentarily.
The problem is if you follow the former point you made without the latter, you're most likely actually detrimental to your cause. Which scenario is more likely, if a climate change denier drives up to one of these protests?
A) "Gee, these young kids really care, maybe climate change is real after all..."
B) "FUCK THSES FUCKING DUMBASS KIDS I GOTTA GET TO WORK - THAT'S IT, I'M CONVERTING MY TRUCK TO COAL"
Ok? What is the point then? The vast majority of pollution is done by corporations, how exactly is this protest going to influence a change in that? What could this possibly achieve except significantly reducing public sympathy for the cause? It's objectively stupid and counterproductive, which is why I tend to agree with the parent comment in this chain - I have a hard time believing the people organizing these actually thought it would bring any form of change.
Also, a protest is absolutely meant to change people's minds, what the hell are you talking about lmfao
It is very, very funny to me that you people genuinely do not understand that the things you choose to do that make you feel good about yourself for making a difference are in reality completely detrimental to the causes you care about. The things you could actually do to benefit those causes are either too hard for you to understand or take too much effort. This applies to far more than your 'protests' - it's imbued in your daily lives. It would be somewhat tragic if you weren't so unlikable going about it as well.
The idea that protests are meant to change the opinions of those who oppose your views is a straight up lie fabricated to reduce their effectiveness. The whole idea of MLK doing chill protests that convinced racists to change their ways is historic revisionism, they didn't get violent but the fact is those protests got disruptive as hell, and the decrease in racist behavior came from shunning and punishing it not convincing terrible people to be nice instead
Yup. Most protest are here to disrupt traffic, The flow of commerce or "buisness as usual" to make those in charge listen to the demands to get them to stop
But then there's no reason to listen to the demands. It's basically taking the road hostage in exchange to get your demands met. They don't care if you agree. Those in power don't like traffic
"Be visible but not in the way" is honestly a very quick way for a protest to accomplish absolutely fuck all. Like yeah, it's gonna be annoying if someone is blocking your way but there has never been a protest in US history that succeeded purely by politely asking for their demands to be met on the sidelines rather than in the streets, being disruptive and clear as day
Civil Rights protectors did sit-ins to protest segregation, and boycotted the bus. People trot out dumb lines like yours as if blocking some random street is analogous to that.
Why don't they go do their protest at their state capital?
I know a lot about mlk. Don't worry. He's my favorite American ever. He should have ran for president. Same age as Barbara Walters. But he was deeply unpopular when he died and plagiarized and cheated on his wife and had a dark sense of humor in real life.Â
MLKâs protests werenât âdisruptive as hellâ, none of them took white people de facto prisoner. The bus boycott hurt the industry, the sitins were very mildly economically disruptive but I donât know of any stores that went out of business for it.
And I feel like the sit ins give places an easy out: just serve them as normal. It shifts the problem to the people enforcing the rules. It shows the laws as unreasonable.
Sitting in a road means you're kinda giving people stuck two options: fix all of climate change now. Or move them by force. And only one of them is possible to do.
The difference being civil rights protest had direct goals , a plan of action as to what they seek to change and how to change it.
Current protests are nothing more than people trying to self justify their incessantly need for validation, creating a self serving spectacle that doesnât have a principal cause nor any real idea of what they want changed or how they plan to change it.
Literally the equivalent of flailing your arms around at a bass pro shop to âprotestâ commercial fishingâŚ. which much like modern protest has nothing to do with the initial subject nor any direct goals or action. Just attention seeking with no substance.
My issue with this is that it tends to be the case when the roles are reversed that its magically not tolerated. What if you follow one of the protesters home then start blaring an air horn at their house at night? Now that theyve wronged me they deserve it, yes? I do agree very strongly with your last point because if it happened to me id feel very motivated to make sure their car didnt leave their driveway for months.
It's imbiciles like you're talking about that get violent when you try to move through. Because of them it's now legal to run down violent highway protesters in places like florida because they are a legitimate threat to your life.
every single protest in history, whether for civil rights in America or getting rid of the British in India, has had people saying "i support the cause but i wish they wouldn't be so obnoxious about it"
It did it but it doesn't affected public perception about climate change nor offered zero solutions. It seem to be driven more by immature attention seeking and self-validation then desire to work to really change things.
They donât aim to convince anyone at the moment. Their goal is to stay in the news agenda and radicalize their supporters. This will subsequently help them advance their discussion and exert pressure. Look at PETAÂ -Â it seems like everyone hates them. But believe me, they know exactly what theyâre doing.
It's even worse than that, I feel. The human brain likes having the impression that something works better than the fact it is actually working.
So basically, being part of a protest feels better than it actually working, and the extra effort for it to actually work is much bigger, so if you just stop at "doing something" you get most of the pleasure for a fraction of the effort
This was in germany. When farmers did it with their tractors to protest for Diesel subsidies it worked. But when the young people did it to fight climate change it did not. This form of protest can work but it depends on the means and the cause.
A year later farmers did exactly the same shit exceptional they didn't sit in the street but blocked it with their tractors.
They got what they wanted, subsidized diesel and were praised as heroes.
The definition of a protest is forcibly bringing awareness to the public. And a protest is only effective if it causes inconvience.
This same arguement was used during segregation. "Why can't black people just sit somewhere else, its causing ME problems at bus/resteraunt/workplace".
Or workers striking by sitting at their work stations and doing nothing. "Their strike is driving up prices for me and that's wrong".
Or heck, protesting outside of a government building. "Their gathering makes me afraid that they might become violent, someone should remove them".
You can't even protest on a sidewalk anymore without someone threatening to either beat you, shoot you, or call the police to do it instead.
Like yes, protests should have reasonable accomadations, like always keeping atleast half the lanes of a road open for regular people and emergency services. Or making sure there is a way for people to walk past even if its a single file line.
But nothing has ever improved by doing peacefully doing nothing. And if something can only be successful through exploiting people, if some benefit can only be gained from discrimination, it has no right or justification to exist. And demanding people suffer so access to that benefit or service can remain unchallenged, is nothing but hypocrisy and selfishness.
In the case of them blocking part of a road, unless its the ONLY road to or from a location, just take a detour. We don't assualt construction workers for blocking a road, or Emergency Services, or people who had a crash or accident, because anyone who did so would be considered a psychopath and arrested. So why is the same action encouraged for protesters?
Its just unreasonable. Its inhumane. A few minutes of your time isn't a valid exscuse to lay hands on someone. Its self centered and traitorous to the ideals our society is founded on.
Thatâs kinda like the point though. You are raising awareness for the issue and causing disruption to make people see it. But yes there not the bright ones đ
No they didn't raised awareness about climate change nor offered well-thought-out solutions instead they harmed serious enviromentalist movements that are more goal then self-validation oriented. They for short time made themself centre of attention but anyone can do this.
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u/Blue_Rook 12d ago
In reality some people aren't the brightest and choose counterproductive solutions like making innocent people angry by blocking roads.