The Nonviolent Movement Helped & Hurt Blacks – Part 2

jamin | August 28, 2014 | 0 Comments

Most folks stopped moving.

What I’m not onboard with, though, is the stance that the nonviolent movement is the only way. Nonviolence overlaid itself on the black race and didn’t allow us any nuance that other racial movements had. I’m not advocating shooting people dead to get a point across, but a show of legally owned firearms could send a message that you aren’t to be messed with. (It worked for white people defending that racist Cliven Bundy in Nevada. Those people will never see a jail cell and they aimed at government agents and used women as human shields.)

They tell us that the only acceptable black person was the one who didn’t pose a threat (MLK), even though nonviolent protest movements were actually aggressive and provoked people to violence. (A room says “Whites Only” and you bring 50 Black folks in to just sit and disrupt business. That’s not exactly passive.) Looking at the suffragettes in London and the African National Congress, they not only used nonviolent methods to get their points across (and make certain people feel “comfortable”), but they also employed militant methods to make some noise to effect change. Guess what? It worked! F.W. de Klerk started breaking down Apartheid because it was the right thing to do but he was also a little scared of what the ANC would do otherwise after decades of retribution killings on both sides. British suffragettes defaced government property and rioted. They got the vote. Those groups were allowed to be nuanced. Black Americans? Not so much. If we’re not docile, quiet, and non-violent then we’re labeled as animals, thugs, uncivilized, and savages. Those are words and methods used to control us.

No more. Black people, stand up and be counted! Be unique. Be varied. Be nuanced. Be who you are and enjoy all the methods of civil disobedience that exist to effect change. Don’t eschew “conscious” white people or other races from helping out and supporting us. (Totally eschew anyone sounding like Bill O’Reilly from helping out, tho. Really. No, really.) I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I’m not gonna be quiet about it anymore. I invite you to join me in my fervor and stay vigilant against respectability politics from without and from within (“If we respected ourselves, they would respect us.” – We arguably respected ourselves more before Civil Rights was passed and they still called us rapists, violent, murderers, and hosed us and killed us while we wore suits, slacks, nice shirts, dresses, and dress shoes. So, just shut up about that). Keep hope alive and be varied, legal, and disobedient within reason until we get what we want and what we need.

And many of your favorite superrich black celebrities will not help you. They’re “New Black” and that means that any problems that you have as a black person are your own fault and institutional racism doesn’t exist. Really, that’s what they believe. Must be nice.