Does protesting make a difference?
We owe the next generation a willingness to stand up for their rights as those before us stood up for ours.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. . . Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass
Dear readers,
I’m oldish and my feet hut and I’d rather stay home and watch reruns of Northern Exposure, but lately I’ve been pushing myself out the door to join protests.
A friend recently asked, do you really think protesting makes a difference?
My answer is YES protests make a difference! This is not to say that every protest brings immediate and lasting change, but protests can change the course of history.
Well organized movements for women’s rights, civil rights, labor, migrant labor, indigenous rights, environmental, LBGTQ rights have all successfully utilized protest as a tool for change against great odds. If you haven’t yet read Howard Zinn’s the People’s History— now would be a great time to read (or reread) it— this is our history— the history of people who stood up to power against great odds and won.
Some things won by protest and by organizing:
8 work hour day
Weekends
Standards for safe work conditions
Laws banishing child labor
The bill of rights itself (this fight also began as protest)
Abolition of slavery (this one took a civil war, but it began as protest)
The right for African Americans to vote
The right for women to vote
The right of women to own property and own credit cards
Rent control (for those lucky enough to have this)
The right to access and talk to your doctor about birth control
Legalization of Abortion
Veterans Benefits
Increases in minimum wage
Cleaner air and water
Civil Rights Legislation
Protection of Voting Rights
The right to marry who we chose
HIV treatment
Police and prison reform (we are not done with some of these!)
Nothing on this list was given without struggle. People lost their lives fighting for these rights. Power is relentless though. The billionaires if they have their way will roll back many if not all of these victories. We owe the next generation a willingness to stand up for their rights as those before us stood up for ours.
Whatever good our legislators have done began as protest or public pressure. Lyndon Johnson was not intrinsically a champion of civil rights, but he made the calculus that signing that Civil Rights bill could help him politically and not signing it would hurt him as a result of public protest and growing sympathy with the protesters.
Our legislators right now are showing us what cowards they are. This isn’t anything new. When Barack Obama was president he tried to spell this out when he said something like “if you want me to do the right thing you will have to make me.” What he meant is—don’t expect me to be more courageous than you are.
So here we are, faced with the rise of authoritarianism. We are either going to make it uncomfortable for those in power to continue to destroy all we hold dear or we are going to experience the worst of their intentions.
Why protesting can make a difference at this moment:
This Regime wants us to be afraid. This is what authoritarians need from us. They need us to be inactivated by our fear while they dismantle the systems that protect us. Protesting together is a way to standing up to a bully.
The more of us stand together the less danger for those who do stand up. At this moment ICE is targeting and kidnapping graduate students who are here with legal residency or on visas for study. They are doing this to intimidate protesters and repress free speech. It is foolish to think any of us are safe in a country that abuses people this way. Those of us with citizenship, privilege, and resources need to stand up for those at the greatest risk.
When we stand up together we signal that we are willing to defend our democracy, our town, and each other. At a time when many democrats are disappointing us, it’s easy to lose hope if that is where your hope lies. We can give each other hope, however, by showing up for one another. Protest is a visible way to do that.
Protesting makes our opposition visible— it’s easy to feel despair and give in to the idea that the coup is inevitable— especially when our newspapers are making this all seem like business as usual, visible protests give hope to those in despair and send a visible signal to those in power that we will not roll over and play dead while they dismantle everything we hold dear.
Even a lone protester can move someone else to action. I will never forget, many years ago, when I was a impressionable college student, driving past Reverend Maurice McCracken, a local civil rights and anti-war activist, who held a an anti-war sign at age 89 in his wheel chair ALONE on the street corner. It moved me deeply to see his courage and commitment in practice. This same man climbed the white house fence to pour red dye in the fountain to protest the Gulf war, and he spent weeks in prison fasting and refusing to cooperate.
In other news, worldwide Tesla protests and boycotts have helped to reduce Tesla profits by 1/3 in just a few months. These actions are having an impact.
Standing on the side of the road with a sign will not change anything on its own, but it’s a necessary ingredient as part of a concerted effort to mobilize, organize and fight back. So yes, I believe that protesting makes a difference. I also believe we are at a dangerous moment when we stand to lose the right to free speech if we do not exercise these rights.
April 5th is a call to action in 50 states and Washington, DC. Let’s show the world the people of this country have courage and heart.
Find days to get involved:
Thank you for this clear expression of an important truth.
See you in the streets! PS love Northern Exposure!