Counter-force: Creative acts of protest

Once again, I am late in posting a journal post. The main issue this time was that I couldn’t really type out something that was interesting in a short few hours. However, in keeping the self-promise to post at least one journal post this week, I decided to do a quick rant about everyone’s most favorite topic this month: social justice.

As the world continues to be rocked by the pandemic, police brutality came back in vogue as another policeman was convicted of the murder of an innocent black man. We see flashbacks of 2016 as people take to the streets to protest this round of systemic racism, and the world has followed suit, with pockets of anti-racist and racist activity taking place.

There were three major expressions of protests that happened this time around:

1. Demonstrations
2. Riots
3. Acts of symbols, speech, and power

While I know most people will see protests as being the first one, and riots being just chaos, I thought that it is important that – on a social level – we acknowledge all three expressions as modes of protest, i.e. an expression of disapproval against something.

Protests usually start with demonstrations – a public act of declaring allegiance and support to a cause. #BlackLivesMatter is an example of demonstration; a declaration of solidarity against police brutality and for the protection of minority rights.

This was followed by a string of riots – basically spikes of organized chaos as splinter groups use this opportunity to accomplish goals that is not related to the cause. Violence, looting, and unruliness. I won’t spend too much time about this one: Riots are inevitable when your organized group cannot keep people in line.

The third one is the more interesting phenomenon – I think a few social justice folk have written about this a few times now, but I rarely see this discussed or analyzed. Acts of symbols, speech, and power are organized activities where groups of people enforce some change.

For the most recent spate of protests, related to the murder of George Floyd, the most powerful Act was the burning of the police station in Minneapolis. People have been labeling this as a riot; a senseless act. I tend to disagree; I think the event was an Act – a move to assert power for the protesters – An act that declares the opposition to the current system as it stands, and the ability to do something about it.

The main challenge for any protest is how organized groups can assert power over their cause – by necessity, that would require force or – failing that – violence. Demonstrations may rally supporters to your side, but a group of people huddling together and doing nothing is called a concert – not a movement.

Acts are often a crucial piece of the puzzle that so many organized groups are unable to complete – and this is because the current system has made it taboo for organized groups to do anything more than just demonstrate.

Too often, when people think about taking drastic action, they think of burning down buildings, attacking people, or ousting the current system. These things has been associated with protests, and very few other options are thus available. But that does not have to be the case.

Acts of symbolism, speech and power can and should be creative acts – Actions where organized groups create something to replace or oppose the current system. It presents a credible threat to the status quo – something that can actually affect how people live their lives.

Consider one of the more radical options that #BlackLivesMatter supporters can take in response to police brutality – They can create their own police force, one that caters to the minority-dominant neighborhoods and protects the interests of the community. Given the US’s unique economic model – where weapons, armor, and resources are privatized and easy to get, organized groups can easily pool resources to form a counter-force.

Now to many protesters, I can understand the ‘ick’ factor of doing this – All cops are bad and all that nonsense. But honestly, if protesters want to see faster reforms, I truly feel that such efforts are the way to go about things.

At the end of the day, your community will still need a group of individuals who have the authority to maintain order, communicate safety, and exert force against dangerous individuals – if the state won’t protect you, why not form a group that will?

A #BlackLivesMatter police force would be a creative force – one that upholds the values of the protests, and denies the offending forces social control over the neighborhood. If your neighborhood trusts the BLM-police more than the state’s police, they’ll cooperate with them more and deny the state control. Setting up one’s community version of a police force, in reaction to the state’s police, sends a strong symbolic and power message to the state.

If the state decides to respond with violence, they will send a further message to all other community plagued with the same problem – that the state cannot protect them. State police forces understand this, and will have to respond in a different way – they will have to compete with the community force to regain the community’s trust.

This is just one possible option – I am sure that there are several other, more imaginative, more creative ways an organized group can Act. I’ve been reading of news of groups around the world tearing down statues of slave traders, and those with problematic history – I wonder if this is only a half-step, and whether it would be a stronger Act to, while the statues are torn down, replace those statues with a creative counterforce – a statue of their own.

The key message here I wanted to share here is that protests should not be limited to demonstration, petitions, and demolitions – it relies too much on the system to spontaneously decide to reform; too much of a gamble. To incite reform, there must be a credible, creative, counter force – an Act that has symbolism, speech, and power.