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Pride and rage at the BLM x Pride march
After participating in last weeks’ BLM x Pride march and parade, I’ve been reflecting on why I protest. In reading Angela Davis’ Freedom is a Constant Struggle, it’s clear that social struggle is necessary for social change. She outlines this in her speech, “Closures and Continuities,” at Birkbeck University in 2015:
“Regimes of racial segregation were not disestablished because of the work of leaders and presidents and legislators, but because of the fact that ordinary people adopted a critical stance in the way in which they perceived their relationship to reality. Social realities that may have appeared inalterable, impenetrable, came to be viewed as malleable and transformable; and people learned how to imagine what it might mean to live in a world that was not so exclusively governed by the principle of white supremacy. This collective consciousness emerged within the context of social struggles."
It was such an honor to protest the past couple weeks among thousands against systemic racism and police brutality. If, like me, anyone in your life has questioned the power of protests, it’s clear that this collective action has been a large reason why there are numerous changes in our government, culture, and organizations, some of which I’ve outlined below. A white conservative friend recently showed me a Fox News interview with Shelby Steele, a Black conservative author who is deeply disillusioned by the protests. Steele argued that the protestors are throwing a tantrum and are leveraging the protests for their entitlement to the welfare state. His views made me reflect why I protest, among the other anti-racism work I’ve done in my friend, family, and organizational circles. So, here is why I protest and some of the changes that have come out of those protests.
Why protest?
In the interview, Steele suggested that there’s an opportunistic angle to the protests. He said it’s about power. You know what? He’s right, but not because we’re “excited” by the death of George Floyd, as he states. Rather, George was a father and a trusted community leader; we’re angry, grieving, and protesting for his life. I was offended that he suggested that the motive to protest isn’t clear now, like he argues it was in the 1960s. One only needs to listen to the speeches by the Black Lives Matter organizers to know that their demands are crystal clear and ALL have to do with public safety.
We’re marching that Black lives matter - matter - an almost comically minimal and reasonable demand. We’re marching for public safety for everyone. We’re marching to enforce our rights as citizens to vote and to be safe in this country. So, yes, it is about power since clearly those in power, those who are white and have written the law to make them immune to it, are not effectively protecting and serving. This isn’t a “temper tantrum,” this is a clear call to make public safety a reality.
Power looks like more men named John running Fortune 500 companies than women. Power looks like 95% of NBA owners being white. It’s about the fact that there are 6X more white men in this country than black men, yet black men are 3x more likely to be in jail. It's about the fact that white women gained the right to vote in 1920 while BIPOC women couldn't officially until 1964 and largely still can't. It’s about the fact that Kalief Browder suffered more than one thousand days in solitary on Rikers waiting for a trial that never happened for a robbery he never committed, while Brock Turner spent 6 months in jail after being convicted of raping a white woman.
It’s about economic gaps between Black and white households in the U.S., lower rates of upward mobility, discrimination in the labor market, big differences in rates of incarceration, disparities in access to quality education, historic exclusion from home ownership. . . It's convenient to say that government aid when it goes to Black and brown people doesn’t “work” and overlook the fact white people sabotaged these efforts themselves, and that Black people built this country for free and largely still do through prisoner work camps utilized by Walmart and Amazon.
And importantly, it’s about the fact that resistance, art, innovation, beauty, and community building are legacies of Black Americans in this country. And while white Americans certainly have been, also, great inventors, artists, and leaders, of which I guarantee your history classes made abundantly clear, our white legacies include deeply divided politics, exploitative capitalism, and a planet rearing her head with environmental degradation and a global pandemic. When do white people come to grips with the truth of what we’ve done rather than scapegoat?
The protests are not a temper tantrum. If you want to see a good old fashioned temper tantrum look no further than Amy Cooper threatening Christian Cooper in Central Park. I’m marching because I don’t want to live in a world where the lives of Black people are taken while driving (George), sleeping in their house (Breonna), jogging (Ahmaud), or walking home eating candy (Trayvon).
As Davis states, it is ordinary people who are driving changes in consciousness and law. She asks:
“How can we counteract the representation of historical agents as powerful individuals, powerful male individuals, in order to reveal the part played, for example, by Black women domestic workers in the Black freedom movement.”
Today, it would be remiss to forget the role of essential workers, the larger percentage of whom are Black and POC. Stonewall was largely drag queens and gay men of color; Black Lives Matter was started by three Black women, two of whom identify as queer. And yet as demonstrators have called out, Black women have not been met with the same national response, especially Black transgender women who are especially at risk for violence, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Plus, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, at least 22 anti-trans bills were introduced in 2019 alone, including restricting health care access to laws that "prohibit certain gender dysphoria instruction in public schools.
The most adorable protester at all of Pride
The Impact of Protesting
It is crucial to recognize the power and results of collective action.Through calls, emails, and protests, citizens have demanded to defund or abolish police departments, companies and individuals have donated millions, Confederate statues have been dismantled, and new laws have been prioritized. Below are some legislative and social changes that this movement has accomplished so far.
The LA City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee moved forward Monday with a proposal to cut up to $150 million from the L.A. Police Department’s budget
Thousands of people across the US rallied for Black trans rights over the weekend after two Black trans women – Riah Milton and Dominique "Rem'Mie" Fells – were killed last week
Iowa's Governor Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) plans to sign an executive order restoring voting rights to felons, which restricts 10% of the state's Black population from voting
Former officer Derek Chauvin, who brutally murdered George Floyd, was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other officers have also been charged
The New York City police commissioner pledged to eliminate its plainclothes anti-crime units
Some cities have temporarily suspended the use of teargas against protestors, including in Portland, Denver, and Seattle. Some lawmakers are looking to propose a bill to bar police from using tear gas
Companies have pledged and implemented changes to address white supremacy in their organizations and products, including Aunt Jemima, Reddit, and Bon Appetit
Louisville Metro Council unanimously voted to pass "Breonna's Law" – a ban on no-knock search warrants
Ferguson, MI swears in their first Black mayor, Ella Jones
Black authors topped the New York Times bestsellers list, indicating the deep sense of urgency to hear and learn from their voices
The city of Atlanta issued charges against the six officers who assaulted two young black people at a recent protest and shot them with stun guns
Paramount Media canceled the show "Cops" after 30 years of glorifying police violence and stereotyping people of color
Organizers of Indianapolis' Pride have announced that police will no longer be invited to Pride events
Statues honoring the cause of enslavement and colonialism have been toppled by local government or public activism in Virginia, Alabama, Maryland, and London, England
This momentum should be encouraging to keep calling, protesting, and reforming, as much work is yet to be done. I’ll continue to remember why I protest, and more, centering the demands of BLM to do so.
At the BLM Protest on June 7, 2020, I wanted my sign to reflect Michelle Obama's words from her 2020 Graduation speech on YouTube.
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