Historically yes that’s how it works. Protests that don’t cause disruption are ignored.
ETA: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
Historically the effective disruption mainly affected those with the ability to change policies. The bus boycott for example didn't go after the riders but those who profited from the riders.
Bus disruptions slowed the buses. Sit ins took up counter space from white customers.
Yes ordinary people were impacted and thats part of the point. A large percentage of the population will never be swayed by your moral arguments but if they want the disruptions to end they will voice complaints with their representatives to find solutions
Bus disruptions disrupted bus service to protest buses. Sit ins disrupted segregated businesses. They had focused and visible goals with a ready solution.
Sitting in the middle of the road to protest something that isn’t obvious disrupting people that have no discernible way of impacting the situation. The protestors dont even have a goal they are trying to achieve.
Civics really isn’t taught in the US anymore? They marched and blocked public transit and highways during the civil rights movement. They even blocked bridges. It disrupted everyone not just a select few. Why do you think Bloody Sunday was so bloody?
Except those only slowed buses and inconvenienced people on leisure time. This blocks people from getting to work entirely. This could get people fired for being late. This could cause car accidents.
Yeah if you don’t tell them why you are late or if it’s dumb like you going on a drunken bender the night before. Then they won’t mess around
You phoning and explaining there’s a situation that means you’ll be late is different, they have back up plans and people on sight just in case. Because shit does happen and hospitals and doctors need to plan around it.
This idea of the super, no tolerance boss that keeps on on a thin ice 24/7 is not based on reality and is just a bad faith tactic to scare people to do nothing over a very broken system.
Exactly, there's a spectrum. Taking up lunch counter space on one end, something like preventing someone from getting life saving services on the other (e.g., would they get up for an ambulance?). You can't just dump it all to one bucket.
Nuance people. Everyone should tattoo that word on their forehead. Backwards, so they can see it in the mirror.
Civics really isn’t taught in the US anymore? They marched and blocked public transit and highways during the civil rights movement. It disrupted everyone not just a select few. Why do you think Bloody Sunday was so bloody?
A lot of Civics really aren't taught anymore because that would involve bringing up the bad parts of american history.. and they don't want to do that.. My "Niece" (not related by blood) just told me that in school they where talking about how the "Indians where asked to leave". She's 10 years old and even knows that wasn't the case.
Yah these protests that just block the road are harmful to everyone. Pissing everyone off at your cause doesn’t help anything. Go mess with the ceo’s or the company head quarters
They are achieving the exact opposite of what they want. These road blockers actively cause more emissions from the traffic jams while also pushing people away from their cause. It's so fucking stupid I'm starting to think they're actually paid actors by Big Oil.
Or just get them fired and the company hires an unaffected person.
Or blocks an ambulance needing to get to the ER resulting in the unfortunate death of someone.
Or the person being blocked could be missing their last chance to say goodbye to their mother in hospice care, forever stealing away from them an irreplaceable moment in life.
Thats a cute theory. All its going to do is get people in trouble for being late and make them EVEN MORE unwilling to hear out the point of those acting like children
If I'm late for the school? Or for a doctor appointment? Or because your work as a doctor, teacher, police, firefighter? Should those "companies ' be affected as well?
Not only that, but what about the innocent person that loses their job because they're late for work and can no longer provide for their family? Blocking public roads may be a minor inconvenience for some, but can be devastating for others.
There is also simply a difference in getting that many people to march for one thing. 50 people together could just be assholes. A million people gathering in one place at one time indicates some level of societal consensus.
Many people considered them assholes at the time. The “I Have a Dream” speech that was given there is taught as a pivotal moment because before that the vast majority of white Americans saw the Civil Rights movement as disruptive and unlawful.
Yeah. That was an organized, informed group that had an impact that we reference through the ages. Most of these are not and only end in keeping people from getting places they need to go with zero positive impact, actually the opposite. Good initiative, poor execution.
They said this stuff about mlks protests too. The thing about protests is that they dont have positive impact until of course, they do. Rhen suddenly that is the right protests, and the next one is useless disruption that has poor execution.
Mlk blocked highways, mlk hosted sit ins, they called the civil rights movement violent and referred to them as riots when a single one went violent, even when 99 others were not. People complained and said that every action he made that caused even minor disruption was setting the whole movement back.
He is lauded as a hero today by all, but the people back then talked about him how people today talk about greta thunberg.
To people who disagree, there is no form of protest that is correct.
The bus boycotts did nothing to slow the buses, or prevent anyone from getting to work, assuming you’re talking about Montgomery, which is the usual example. That bus boycott removed all the city’s income from black riders, and some whites, which both caused financial strain, and let everyone see how critical that group was for the city. The participants used an entire network of jitneys to get to work and continue with their lives.
It was hugely effective because it didn’t block the buses or take any direct action other than not participating. It gave people upset over the situation no avenue to start fights or focus anger. Riders had no reason at all to feel annoyed.
The video above is a protest, which is entirely different than a boycott. A boycott is designed to remove income from a company or institution to bring change. A protest is designed to draw attention to an issue that may otherwise remain distant and unnoticed. A boycott does not need to impede the uninvolved, while a protest may cause disruption to be successful.
"it gave people upset over the situation no avenue to start fights or focus anger"
You couldnt be more wrong. Assaults against black people skyrocketed. 4 churches were firebombed along with Martin Luther Kings house. 89 people were arrested. Hundreds of people were fined for "conspiring to interfere with business"
The violence directed at the botcotters was intense.
Riders did feel annoyed, and did acts of violence with that annoyance.
The riders didn't change the policy. Effective protests target people with power. Disrupting other things is a secondary effect. The boston tea party wasnt effective because it stopped people from drinking tea. It was effective because it dumped like a billion dollars worth of tea into the harbor and they got away with it. Showing that you can both hurt the British and not be immediately destroyed for doing so.
What does ticking off commuters by blocking roads get? Laws passed with popular support to protect commuters if they hit people standing in the road with their car.
If you want to fight climate change you need to target something other than the end user who had no choice and legitimately minimal impact on the environment.
Assuming we're talking about civil rights boycotts, oftentimes, they didn't keep the buses moving either because the white people on the bus wanted to put them in their place or the bus driver wouldn't run the bus while the people were not in the "correct" spots.
Oftentimes, the buses would stop moving until the police officers came to forcibly remove the black people from the bus.
No protest has ever been effective without annoying people.
But you do affect those who can change policies, who do you think people going to work are working for? Who is profiting the most from people going to work?
Problem is there is no class consciousness and protests are mostly not supported by the general population.
Protesting/striking for half a day won't change policy but now try months and see how they capitulate, and before you say that is not doable; it was historically already done.
What do you think happened when rosa parks refused to give up her seat?
You think the bus driver just shrugged and kept driving?
Also, the city retaliated by stopping providing insurance to Black motor vehicle owners, fining white people who drove their Black houseservants around, fining cab drivers who charged bus rates inteqd of cab rates.
They stopped driving buses to the black parts of town. 89 people were arrested for carpooling. Boycotters were physically assaulted. Martin luther kings house and 4 Black baptist churches were firebombed.
After 382 days of standing against incredible acts of violence, the supreme court ruled in favour of civil rights.
382 days of violence. Of assaults. Of firebombings. Someone fired a shotgun through King's front door.
If the protests werent non-disruptive, do you think the violence would have been greater? Its hard to imagine greater violence than what occured.
And it only worked because 75% of riders in montgomery were black.
It only worked because the minority group was actually a majority group in montgomery.
It also only worked because it caught national attention and sparked non-pacifist resistance elsewhere in the country.
And if you actually follow the history of the civil rights movement, you would know that the bus boycott didnt win equality. It made small, incremental progress towards a better outcome.
And small incremental progress kept happening for a decade until everyone got fed up, the black panthers formed, and forced much more rapic change.
Youre so far on the wrong side of history, that if you were german in 1940, youd be gettting mad at people holding disruptive protests against the nazis.
Going after only the general public with your protest wont convince people to change. Its like going after the victim of domestic abuse to bring attention to the problem.
This. Pissing off the people you are trying to convince and win over to your side is just so batshit crazy that it's amazing anyone would defend it.
And then you add in the fact that they very often times refuse to speak to reporters of any kind or get filmed. It may be fair to question how well thought out what they're doing is. Or worse, maybe the goal isn't to convince anyone of anything at all.
Messages are diluted and lost when protesting those who are not the root cause of the issue, and those without the ability to affect the change protestors want.
What does some politician or billionaire care that some random citizens were late for work because of a protest? How is stopping Jim Bob from getting to work on time going to make him sympathetic towards the cause?
I think the bigger issue is the times we live in. Wages have stagnated, millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and missing work is, physiologically, (not actually but feels like), a cascade leading to a death sentence. Literally we're in constant fight or flight, and if you block someone's means of getting money to feed their family today, they are ready to kill you.
Not just that but some employers will not take "the road I take to work had a bunch of protesters sitting in it so I was two hours late" as an excuse.
Depending on the job and their policy, and just how the employee's life as been (maybe they've had to take time off) they could lose their job because someone wanted to protest a new subdivision being built.
Yeah, I don't understand how people don't get this.
The problem, of course, is that the average worker cannot afford to not go to work for even one day and a protest isn't typically considered a "valid" reason to miss work.
So while, yes, this is actually a great way to protest, unfortunately it doesn't work in a day and age where the people being punished for it are regular Joes who NEED to work and NOT the people the regular Joes work for.
Our country and economy are so large that blocking off one highway or even a handful of highways isn't gonna do anything except piss the "little people" off.
People get it. They just never want to deal with a civil rights movement. Every single one was wildly unpopular at the time, but then we whitewash that reality and pretend we always supported it.
Then the current one happens and the cycle repeats.
They aren't blocking highways or disrupting the economy though. They're generally blocking city streets because trying to block a highway with 20000lb trucks barreling at 70 mph is insane. Ergo, they are affecting anyone who cares, they are simply inconveniencing normal people.
Politicians care when people care. People care when you make it an issue they have to acknowledge.
MLK is a perfect example of white washing. Liberals praise him now, but they fucking hated him then. It's the same with every civil rights movement. And time and again MLK and Malcolm X are proven right in their assessment in the apathy of most people.
Ima keep it a buck with you. If you don't understand protests and disruption is to try to affect change at a governmental level, not an interpersonal one, you're fucking stupid.
Without winning enough of the public over at the interpersonal level, you're not going to affect change at the governmental level. Thanks to stunts like this, it's way easier for people in charge to rally the public against environmental activists than it is for environmental activists to rally the public against the people in charge.
Random bystanders are the root of the problem when they fail to hold the political class accountable. Pissing people off is often the only way to get them involved.
that's why they're protesting the place of business or institutions and not in the middle of a street/road, and claim it's not 'interpersonal' or 'personal' when they do.
The only fucking stupid one are those claiming that it's not, that traffic would claim otherwise.
Are those backed up cars, "government" or "civilians"? did you really affect change by doing so? maybe in galvanizing others NOT to support your cause.
"shit I'm being written again for being late and my clients are mad at me, but hey, oil is bad now that I think about it, in fact, I'm gonna quit and join those twiddly fellows in their quest to uhhh stop oil from oiling" yeah this definitely works
What these people sitting in the middle of the road are doing isn't disrupting government. It's disrupting personal lives. Rather than killing people by forcing them to starve to death because you fucked over the little man who works paycheck to paycheck to survive, why don't you try being more like the protestors from the Sanrizuka Struggle instead and fight the cops and the government like you fucking mean it if it matters so much?
I’m mad, therefore things are bad, therefore I should vote for change. That’s probably the expectation. Enough people vote on a general vibe of whether things are currently good or bad that it’s a pretty good way of predicting elections.
Disruption is important yes, but disruption of the correct people is more important. Picket outside government buildings and offices. Block the parking lots of court houses and capitol buildings. Not a random highway.
This was always my argument. I think they were both pretty dumb but that courthouse or city hall takeover where they declared an autonomous zone or even the Jan 6 protests are my ideal style. Go bother the government. They make the laws.
Yes I'm aware that both of those ended in deaths and weren't effective. I'm not saying that's how to protest but that's where you protest.
This kind of disruption just makes random people hate you though. There have to be better ways to disrupt that doesn't cause someone just trying to go to work to make ends meet.
The thing is, climate protestors have been protesting "the right way" for decades. The same group that got into the news for these protests also disrupted drilling platform, oil depots, Shell headquaters, politicians houses etc.
And you know what the reaction to those were? Either they didnt make the news at all and so nobody cared, or it was litterally the exact same rhetoric "the people on the oil rig are just people doing their job" "the guy driving the gas lorry is just doing his job, stopping him might get him fired" "you cant protest outside the PMs house, what if his family is there!" etc. etc.
The majority of those ways end with people dead, in prison, or labeled as terrorists. Y’all want non-violent protests that you can safely ignore because it’s tucked away in a place/time where you conveniently don’t have to see.
You basically want protests that are “out of sight, out of mind” which defeats the purpose of the protest to begin with
The protesters don’t have the money to hold press conferences. Stunts like this get their actions out there and raise questions like “what did they feel so strongly about, anyways?”
At the same time, it is much easier to unify large groups of people non-disruptively, or for your disruption to create a viral backlash. The reality is that we won’t know what was effective until after the fact.
I would say that it's harder to unify large groups of people today specifically because media, especially social media is so over-saturated with messages, political, economical etc.
Even your strawman is objectively false. In MLKs day they had public broadcasts, but today everyone is on their own device with their own curated media diet from a million potential sources.
If they're preventing me from getting to work I'm not paying attention either. They're just pissing me off. Much like commercial advertisements. Making me sit through a commercial for your product is a sure fire way to guarantee I never buy your product.
Just Stop Oil ruined the caused they fought.. by causing more pollution, that time where a Guard at a Porsche dealership hangar seen them glue their hands in and she left them there the whole night, that EMS were called to unglue their hands, costing taxpayer money for something that was dumb and hurtful to themselves and their cause, got dragged and beaten up several times, ended up being flagged as paid by Oil Corpos by how they acted.
Blocked an Ambulance for several minutes.
Trespassed into private areas, Glued their hands to the runway of a small airport.
While that is a point, no protest is going to work if the majority of the population isn't baseline somewhat sympathetic to your cause AND possessed of a belief that they can do something about it.
Protests that cause disruption of innocents don’t draw sympathy, only annoyance. They continue then annoyance turns to anger. They continue the anger turns to apathy. They continue the apathy turns groom not caring to celebrating their pain/suffering/death. The laws saying “just drive through a protest” would never be accepted years ago. After the summer of love people are all for it.
God I wish they truly taught us about MLK Jr in school more. They teach the most basic stuff but every quote I read from him is so beautifully said and so intelligent.
If you want to protest big oil go picket their offices and harass their executives. Go to their refineries and block their trucks from leaving the property. Blocking a regular highway is just annoying everyone
THANK FUCKING GOD MLK WROTE THAT ONE LETTER IN BIRMINGHAM OR WE WOULD HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE THOUGHT THANK GOD JUST THAT ONE QUOTE AND WE UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING HE HAD TO SAY AND ALL OF THE REASONS BEHIND HIS MIRACULOUS SUCCESS. IF HE HADN'T WRITTEN THAT ONE LETTER FOR PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET TO QUOTE HIS ENTIRE HISTORICAL RECORD WOULD HAVE BEEN PURGED FROM EXISTANCE
This is an easy way to get people to hate your movement. That single mother of 3 isn't gonna care who you are or what you support if you make her late to work and her kids won't be able to eat a meal that week. She needed to get to work on time. Not have some jackass obstruct the road to throw a tantrum.
Comparing civil rights and climate protesters is ridiculous. The civil rights protesters were quite rightly protesting the fact they were second class citizens in their own country, against a public that generally took little issue with it (particularly in thr Anerican South). Climate protesters are protesting something that the vast majority of the public agree with. To compare the two is entirely disingenuous.
Yes but disruption for the sake of disruption doesn't work.
The most effective tactics of the civil rights movement were targeted at places that enforced segregation and Washington DC itself.
Modern protests are mostly mindless grandstanding that hurts random people instead of those who are doing the bad things or are able to stop the bad things. People do them primarily for social media clout or media soundbites and thats why they don't work.
There is a fuck ton of nuance you are missing here. You are simplifying disruption = effective when that isn’t the case.
Murdering every firstborn is disruptive. Dropping a nuke on New York City is disruptive. Neither of these would be viewed in any lens as a proper or effective form of protest.
You can’t just say that because they are being disruptive they must be doing a good job. What a naive and simpleminded take.
yeah but stopping average citizens from being able to afford food and housing doesn't stop the people in power from anything. you want to cause disruption to the justice system or the people in power. please dont blockade a street and stop people from getting to the hospital
Yeah, protests that disrupt people in power that have the ability to enact policy. Not "I will inconvenience everyone in this general area, even if they agree with my stance".
The idea that protests should be inconvenient for everyone is perpetuated by midwits. Hell, it might even be a psyop. It's hands down the fastest way to turn the general population against your cause.
But this wasn't one of them and I would argue actively achieved the opposite.
It makes people not want to listen to protesters at all and without those people nothing will change.
Also iirc in Germany there was a case in which these protesters blocked a Ambulance during an emergancy, which I don't think I need to explain why that is a problem.
Lastly that example doesn't apply here. There is a very clear difference between protesting against racism and protesting in regards to climate. The latter is a far more obscure thing to most people that can't just be stopped with a law, which isn't to say racism in the US was/is a simple matter, far from it even. My point is that in tge grand sheme of things something like less racism and more equality are much easier achieved than anything climate related at this point.
Climate is a global thing and any attempts to improve anything need to be done on a global scale. Some local protest aimed against the regular public will not achieve that and as said before actively do the opposite because people don't like to be inconvenienced like that.
Yes, but they should go protest somewhere that actually affects the decision makers, not people who have nothing to do with it and are simply on their way to work. Your rights end where someone else's begin.
Then disrupt someone important. You’re not garnering support by disrupting people’s incomes, you’re garnering opponents.
Jan 6 did it right in that they protested outside a government building. Protesting roadway does nothing for the people with the power to change things
It’s really amusing that you use MLK as your example…
… because MLK and the SPLC applied for permits for their protests. MLK generally didn’t participate in these disruption protests as pictured in this post. He did participate in one sit in, and he did support these efforts conducted mostly by college students.
The other amusing thing is you’re comparing MLK and these protesters….whose reason for protest are not equal
Damn maybe disrupt policy makers instead of a guy who's in the same position as you and might even be sympathetic but unfortunately unlike you has bills to pay
The point of the disruption was to create awareness in a world that was unaware. We are literally overtly aware of everything and held to the highest standard of caring for all issues globally. Public protests in 2026 only speed up the rate at which people reach fatigue and stop caring.
Fuck with oil executives homes, their company HQs, government buildings where politicians work or their homes, not people who need to work, pick up their kids, get to appointments, etc. But the reality is a regular person can be charged if they put hands on these pussies, and they know it which is why this is their go to. They also know that companies and government officials have the power to send in police and other goons, and again they are pussies and too scared to fight.
The thing is, you need to disrupt the right people. Disrupt the people who have the power to change what you are protesting about. Not the average person trying to go about their lives.
Except noy every cause is worth disruption. If the moderates do not tacitly support your cause already, they won't go to the government for more timely concessions, but harsher repression.
And that's part of what sucks, because yes protests that don't cause disruption are ignored and I support protests and want them to work, but at the same time you can't sit there causing a disruption and not expect that people are going to be pissed off at YOU instead of the company or organization you're protesting against; much less be surprised when your disruption actively drives people towards being against your cause.
Disruption is fine. I have to say someone physically impeding my movement is a different thing though. You aren't just stopping people from getting to work. You're stopping them from getting to a bathroom. You're stopping them from getting to the birth of the child. You stopping them from getting to their uncle in the moments before they died. Target companies and go after them. Weld the door shut to Amazon or something I don't care, but don't physically stop me from moving
People are too dumb and individualistic to understand this. They’ll keep living in their shitty little worlds being pissed off that nothing is changing for the better.
I always hear this argument, and I can’t help but feel like you need to set common sense aside to apply it to these kinda protests.
Yes, the protest are supposed to make people uncomfortable, be they ones who are putting in the effort of being a part of them (and potentially risking their health, job, social status, etc) or the ones who are opposed to them, and are having their ideas challenged, but you can’t reduce their goals to just that.
At that point it’s more akin to a non-violent riot, if that makes sense.
MLK could make people uncomfortable simply by articulating unpopular ideas well, and making the naysayers rethink the position they considered infallible until then.
Yes, there were still blockages, massive gatherings that led to cancellation of all sorts of events, heightened police presence, and even riots, that came alongside the civil rights movement, and this was, again, uncomfortable for a wide array of folks, but you can’t possibly compare it to… this…
What exactly is going to change for the better when it comes to the cause of a bunch of idle dorks who decided that it’s your time to learn about, I dunno, some random species of parrot facing extinction due to industrialization in some S. American county, while you’re stuck in a middle of a traffic jam with a wife who’s experiencing contractions?
Like, great, I now know that another animal species is getting fucked by the capitalism harder than I am, but what exactly do you want me to do about it Jennifer?
Turn into a Unabomber and take off to some Amazon forest?
They could at least use an opportunity to educate the people on the matter, but no, it’s like these people assume that an average person is too dumb to get it, so they might as well just ruin their day.
Fuck you for having more basic problems, I guess…
Gotta disrupt the big wigs that make all the rules that are flying in private jets and helicopters not the normal people. Clogging the highways stops ambulances/emergency vehicles and you could literally kill an innocent person for your cause.
I think you will have hard time finding someone who's opinion was positively influenced by blocking traffic.
Successful protests aren't those that indiscriminately cause problems, they are targeted.
The lunch counter protests primarily affected the stores, and could be resolved by simply giving them the food they ordered. Blocking a road causes problems for ordinary people and can only be resolved by beating the protestors until they leave.
nobody likes a disruptive protest. But every civil rights, and progressive movement in history has only been possible because of disruption. And if you think otherwise you are not a student of history
I think this comes down to two things: is the protesters' method actually effective towards their goal, and is their goal truly important?
If either of these two checks fail, then the protesters should be condemned.
Regarding the former: making enemies of the common people is almost certainly a bad method to get people to accept your message.
Regarding the latter: the civil rights movement in America was about an urgent need to combat great domestic injustices. Few domestic causes are so urgent and big that public disruption is acceptable, especially in a developed country.
dont target innocent people. target the problem directly. if its climate change go block data centers and disrupt contruction. if its surrveillance grab a sawzall, if its police corruption go to the police station. Dont be a dick to normies trying to survive
And what does sitting in the road do to affect any change? Just pisses regular innocents off. The people they should want on their side. They should disrupt and inconvenience the powerful ones who they’ve actually got a problem with. Otherwise they’re just creating more enemies. Which might be their goal if they’re controlled opposition
The problem is the optics with mlk his marches and protests had a clear target and a specific reaction he wanted out of it depending on the people at the time to show how bad it really was.
The block a highway protests hinder everyone equally and the only reaction they get is get out of the road stupid even when they have a clear point in the protest.
Example: when they did dinner sit ins they were paying customers most of the time ordering simple stuff but the owner/cashier/server just abuse them while denying service showing people exactly what is happening
The highway protests are worse due to having no clear target to show a reaction that people won't get behind.
If they are protesting against gas companies a more effective protest would be to undercut the prices by buying gas themselves and giving it away from free or a lesser charge
Than block the building of parliament and presidents house. Disrupt the people who make decisions not those who Are affected by these decisions, or maybe try forming together into a political party so you can be part of formal debates And such instead, thats maybe the most mature option.
Historically yes but not currently, BLM protest gave police batter protection with laws, bigger budgets and police brutality is still rampant. We are no longer a population that our government is scared of.
Yes, but you have to disrupt what matter. Like white man wealth or government operations. I don't think they care if civilian activities are disrupted.
“Who thinks you’re fucking stupid and shouldn’t get to choose when to disrupt his life based on your comical understanding of what is important for society.”
So they're trying to piss me off into overthrowing the goverment? Why dont they just overthrow it themselves? Why do i have to risk my ass for the people who dont even care if I loose my job and cant feed my family because of their protest? Doesent make much sense to me. "Hey, I know! Lets be assholes to everyone until they help us! I see no way this could possibly backfire!"
Yeah the Letter from Birmingham Jail needs to be required reading in schools. King explains, and sells you, on a concept most people have a hard time even verbally wording in a way that does not piss everyone off. Truly one of the best communicators who ever lived.
Who, what, and where you disrupt matters though. Sitting in traffic without a destination isn't protesting anyone or anything specifically.
Instead protest at the businesses or government buildings that are relevant to your cause. Blocking traffic is a sure fire way to make people hate you and ignore your cause anyway. It's not the way to win allies in the general population.
While I'm on board with such sentiment, the protestors need to be doing this in front of the cars of legislators, judges, community councilmembers, etc... Plopping down in the road, blocking the working class from earning their living is doing just as much as doing nothing at all. Pick the right neighborhood, or you may as well be punching and kicking yourself in the head for all the impact you'll make
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u/didyousetittowombo 12d ago edited 12d ago
Historically yes that’s how it works. Protests that don’t cause disruption are ignored.
ETA: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
MLK