“The Protesters aren’t Peaceful, Therefore are Invalid”

A look at a popular white supremacist bullshit framing of Civil Rights Protest.

“The Protesters aren’t peaceful!”

“They lose people when they riot!”

“When they riot the point is lost!”

Ever wondered about how certain folk who rant and rave about how “protesters aren’t peaceful” will not listen to you either, even when you’re totally peaceful in diligently explaining the issue?

It’s not about the actions of those in the streets.

Passive-Aggressive Racist: “they are rioters, and they subtract from their point!” Johnny S. But I’m peaceful. I’m saying the same thing. *blinks eyes five times* Passive-Aggressive Racist: *dumbfounded dead silence*

Science, math, and the wonders of the universe whiz past their heads, flying at Mach 4.

The math of the logic doesn’t add up

We are going to use Washington D.C. in this metric, just counting days. If a riot occurred for two days out of 365 days of protest, and riot is the one thing that stops white people from “getting behind” a protest movement, then those white people are moved by 0.55% of a negative occurrence. This is essentially being motivated in a negative direction by less than a percent.

30% of 365 days is 109.5 days. 50% of 365 is 182.5 days. But these white people are moved in the wrong direction of progress, by significantly less. 0.55% isn’t even a full integer.

Looking at this another way, if Black people and all allies included are doing what is defined as the “right thing” concerning “peaceful protest” for 363 days out of a 365 day year, that’s 99.45% of all protests in a year being peaceful protests. This means that white people — conservative or otherwise — can observe peaceful, nonviolent, nondestructive protests occurring 99.45% of the time and still be unmoved by the call to action concerning civil rights and social justice.

Clearly, it’s not about the actions of those marching in the streets.

In other words, 99.45 percent of protests — all of which are peaceful to their own standards — do not matter to white people. Only the destructive, violent ones do, which are 0.55 percent of protests involved.

If only destructive, violent protests matter to white people, and no peaceful protest (which are the majority) matter to them at all, then one can only conclude that white people only observe Black protests in order to deter, degrade, and destroy Black people and their intent, target Black communities, and destroy Black protesters for merely speaking up.

Hating Black people speaking up, is hating Black people.

I prefer pointing to the very fact that a protest non-participant, “peaceful” person is currently, diligently explaining to them, in person, what’s what, and contrast that with their “not peaceful” complaint — on a meta-level, showing them that they don’t listen to peaceful folk either in real-time. This proves true not just across space but also time. Looking at writers like Frederick Douglass, for example, there’s no shortage of nonviolent, nondestructive Black voices on civil rights. There’s too many Black people saying the same thing across time and space for white people to have normalized their ignorance. Be intellectually aggressive; force them to think about how they look when they say and do these things. Be the mirror.

Conclusion

They don’t care about peace, of whether it’s a peaceful protest or not. They care about silencing Black people. When they say things about protesters, rioters or looters, point to yourself as you are saying the exact factual thing without any measure of civic dysfunction. Extract the facts from them: it’s not about the street engagement, it’s about silencing Black people and shutting down Civil Rights, and from there, make them wonder why they want to silence Black people, including the very civic, in their perspective innocent you. Make their racism uncomfortable for them to spew.

When you become the mirror and force people to self-reflect on what they say and do, it leaves a bad taste in their mouths. Aim for that disgusted look in their faces when you force self-reflection. That disgusted look on their face isn’t about you; it’s about them. Form a habit of making white supremacy-friendly people taste their own bullshit in their own mouths through forcing self-reflection.