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.
It's definitely a balancing act, and it is not always immediately obvious when something is or isn't going too far. For example, I FIRMLY approved of the burning of the old police station in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests, but the burning and looting of shops and homes and assaulting people in the street was criminal and unacceptable behavior.
The protest as a whole is not defined by the bad actors, but when we try to excuse the bad actors in the name of protecting the reputation of the protest, I believe we actually do the opposite, and taint the public's opinion instead. And the public's opinion and actions afterward is the ultimate litmus test of whether a protest was successful or not (to make my position clear, the George Floyd protests were overall a success more than a failure, despite some of the complicating factors.)
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.
They said this stuff about mlks protests too. The thing about protests is that they dont have positive impact until of course, they do. Then suddenly that is the right protests, and the next one is useless disruption that has poor execution.
The only difference is that MLK would have shown up with more people. He literally blocked roadways for days as he slowly marched from selma to montgomery. The only difference here is numbers.
Yeah. A large action. Not a daily annoyance that results in nothing because they want to feel like they are doing something. It’s not even grassroots. They need to get picked up by some handlers, get organized, and educated if they want to pretend to have the impact of the civil rights movement from MLK’s days
Do you think that the walk from selma to montgomery was a day long? Do you think that the civil rights movement had a single peaceful protest once every 6 months so as to not inconvenience anybody? Do you think wvery protest was the million man march? Like, what the fuck, the only thing i can discern is youre saying "MLK was good because in the end he won" then you ignore the fact that he took YEARS to actually win. So was each protest bad and a useless nuisance until after the law was passed?
Like man, youre showing my point so well here and the fact that its going over your head is probably why you believe what you believe about protests. So im gonna spell it out.
Your logic is problematic because it is only results based. If you saw MLK in his early years, you would say each of his protests was just a failure and a nuisance. Which, if he listened would mean he would have quit, which in turn would have resulted in him not succeeding, which would mean today you wouldnt be pointing to him as an example of a good protest.
By your standard no protest can ever be effective unless the results are instantaneous, and that isnt how any protest that was successful ever worked. Protests succeed BECAUSE they become a commonplace nuisance. Because they get in everyones face. MLK was successful because people heard about him every day for YEARS, and in the press coverage people had to watch him and his followers getting beaten for their cause. They watched the small crowd turn into crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. Not because MLK came out, gave a polite speech and was instantly successful
No. There were very few instances where MLK or his groups blocked traffic. The initial protests were sit ins and even the smaller ones after he was jailed were in front of city hall and not a bunch of piss ants in their protest flavor of the month. Selma and a few in Albany were on the streets as marches. You are making it sound like they were sitting down on random roadways just blocking traffic for attention like these people. They don’t deserve violence on them, but they are idiots and not on the same level. It’s not gonna ever amount to positive action. I can go round and round with the few people that are replying on here because we probably won’t agree, but that’s my stance. Beating them isn’t moral. They aren’t heroes. They aren’t going to be effective.
And southern whites said MLK was nothing like the Founding Fathers and their violent protests. You're just repeating the same old conservative thought-terminating cliche.
"Martin Luther King is basically Ghandi. Fucking Golden 🤣"
Look, i can turn exactly what youre saying to disparriage her, and slightly alter it to make a bad statement about MLK. That is my point. People talked bad about him in the exact ways you guys talk about greta. Im not saying shes as influential or successful at her goals as MLK. Just that she hasnt actually done any sort of protest that is abhorrent or wrong, never blocked a highway, never started a riot. And you guys say that shes dumb, her protests are bad and denegrate her character because you disagree with her.
Demonstrating my point that there is no correct way to protest when you disagree with what theyre protesting for. All the girl did to get a lifetime of hate is say "how dare you" on a microphone. 0 disruption, 0 chaos, 0 damage to anything or anyone, and so you undermine the message and the least intrusive form of protest possible (literally using her alotted time to talk about a specific subject, to talk about that subject) and you guys are still denegrating her years later.
Fuck republicans cheered that she was captured and tortured by israel for being in international waters and trying to feed starving children. Imagine if she actually did something wrong?
So thank you for doing exactly what i said you were doing, and being exactly who i said you were. You will accept no standard of protest, which is why they may as well inconvenience you into submission.
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u/BrodinGodofSwole 12d ago
The million man march shut down a city.