Rioting is an interesting premise. Few endorse the principle of using force to accomplish change, but in the heat of the moment, it’s hard for many to control their emotions. We are more likely to succeed in protests if we present our discontents with maturity and calmness, all while maintaining urgency and importance. Real change can be effected if the method is as serious as the message it conveys.
During the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, we celebrated Dr. King’s life and accomplishments. He made enormous strides toward racial equality in America. He said, “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”
King did not support riots, choosing nonviolence instead, and the Civil Rights Movement saw bounds of success. The Ferguson rioters, on the other hand, chose to act violently in order to make a statement. I do not intend for this to be offensive because I will be one of the first people to agree that our police forces need work and should better represent its community. After Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson, rioters acted violently, looting stores and burning cars. By acting in this way, they enabled the public to stereotype them. The rioters made it so that onlookers could say, “They’re all violent, irrational people. How can anyone support them?” Both King and the Ferguson rioters were fighting to solve racial tensions, but they did it with different approaches.
We deal with this problem too often, and what we must realize is, to succeed in making a statement, we must focus more on how we present ourselves. People will overlook the cause if the demonstration is flawed. It boils down to public perception, and if we truly want to make a difference, we must make it undeniable that we are doing the right thing. While I think riots should be treated as a indication that a problem exists, we must remain cognizant of how society will perceive our actions.
In the New York Magazine article, “New Study Shows Riots Make America Conservative,” Jonathan Chait reports on a study conducted by Omar Wasow, which examined the effects of both nonviolent protests and riots in the Civil Rights Movement on public opinion. Areas with nonviolent protests saw a “statistically significant positive relationship with county-level Democratic vote-share.” In areas of violent rioting, people had a tendency to vote against what the protesters were fighting for, and in areas of nonviolent protests, people vote in favor of the protesters. To make a long story short, if people see flaws in the methods used to protest, they consider those flaws as a sufficient reason to not support the cause.
Riots in Baltimore and Ferguson failed to yield substantive changes to police brutality. I am not saying the protesters’ rage was illegitimate; I am posing a natural question: where are the tangible results? Compare those riots to the nonviolent protest at the University of Missouri. When word got out that the system president, Tim Wolfe, wasn’t doing enough to prevent racism at the school, Missouri’s football team threatened boycott all team-related activities until Wolfe stepped down. Two days later, he did just that. They didn’t fight. Didn’t take to the streets. Didn’t burn, break, or steal things. On the contrary, their nonviolent solidarity encouraged actual results.
From a purely practical perspective, a good cause is only a minor detail for a successful protest movement. It’s more important to find a way to gain positive attention. The justness of a cause is often judged on the justness of its method.
