As the protests from Minneapolis have spread from state to state, city to city, we’ve been consistently met with online anger at the violence from the protesters of George Floyd’s murder. One has to wonder: what did they expect?
Black protesters are reminded that looting stores and damaging private property is immoral, that these violent acts cannot be condoned, and that peaceful protest is the only method through which real change can be met. Black people are reminded that this is not what Martin Luther King would have wanted. They are reminded that violence will not solve their problems.
We are reminded again how easy it’s become to decouple a racist police force from a political system rotten to its deepest roots. We are reminded of how simple it is to ignore the oppression of our most oppressed peoples in every avenue of life.
But what will solve their problems? The answer it seems is obvious – one must stick to the program. Through a dazzling display of ignorance, the white social sphere argue that if change is to be made, it must be through the ballot box. With ignorance in mind, it should hardly be surprising that in this context the privileged white classes that have been alienated from the effects of police brutality might suggest such a placebo. From a privileged class a narrative emerges: narrow your gaze and dim your vision, there is only one avenue of escape – and it is one that we designate.
It could only be through either malevolent intent, or through an alienated ignorance that they can’t see that despite decades upon decades of effort, electoral politics has not delivered even the most basic safeties.
We consistently see again and again the idea that some of the actions of the protesters are justifiable, whilst others are not – and it has raised an interesting point: what control, if any, does a society have over the reaction to systemic state violence? If the comments from the enraged white social media sphere are to be taken at face value we can see a novel story unfolding – that each protester is an individual actor, making individual ethical decisions: in this analysis we can see clearly how easy it is to alienate an action from its context. The true picture of protest is one of connectivity and spontaneity. To understand the protests through the lens of the individual is to refuse to grapple with the protest in its purest form: as a rupture from the world.
Through media narratives which separate the political sphere into categories of acceptability, violent protest is being portrayed as the project of malevolent individual actors. But these protests are not led by any one person, they are the social response to decades of violence.
As workers are looted for what they produce, and are paid a fraction of their labour to tide them over, we should remember that violence begets violence. As American prisons overflow with black bodies who have been looted of their lives on minor drug offenses disproportionately filling prison cells, we should remember that violence begets violence. As police forces murder black bodies in the street without repercussion, we should remember that violence begets violence.
Again and again we have seen that violent protest cannot be condoned. What we should be asking is… what did they expect?
I'm reminded of a quote by the black revolutionary Frantz Fanon:
When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breath”. – Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth.
And so we might summarise violent protests as such:
As if gasping for air,
As a last resort,
Ordinary people are forced into violence,
To rupture from a path forced upon them,
By violence.
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