When are violent protests acceptable?

It never fails that when the government decides to use force, arguments about how protestors should behave abound. Speaking as a white woman, I was raised not just by my parents but by our society and our government that the only acceptable protest is peaceful. It does not matter how violent the police are, you are just supposed to take it. However, to take the beating, the tasing and the tear gas and remain calm is counterintuitive to the genetic drive to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities. Additionally, at some point the police will kill someone. Then where do we go with protests?

It’s important to put up some guardrails when discussing such a hot topic. Everything I write is simply my opinion. It is an opinion based on my experience. That experience is as a white woman who was raised as a liberal in the south. It also comes from my experience and knowledge of not just federal law enforcement but specifically the brutality of the immigration enforcement agencies. But most importantly, it is important to remember that protests and the government’s response to them are fluid and ever evolving situations just as our abilities to respond are fluid and ever evolving. We are human beings not machines.

Like many Americans, my first introduction into the violent vs non-violent protests argument was from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The assassination of Dr. King, Robert Kennedy and President John Kennedy left my parents and many of their generation deflated. These men were considered heroes of the time along with many others. Principally, Dr. King was the voice and face of the peaceful protests of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement that was in full force when my parents were teenagers in Alabama. They preached that peaceful and non-violent protests were the path to justice.

And then the opposition just killed them all. Assassinated all of them.

At the same time, their words and deeds live on. In many ways their work created new ideas and educated the entire world on the hypocrisies of the US government. Their work led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 just to name a few achievements. President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 never seeing the fruits of his labor. Dr. King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968.

As a young child in the 1970s and 80s in Alabama with white parents who felt guilty about not participating in the movement, I was immersed into Dr. King’s work. It wasn’t just a once of year celebration where we repeated our favorite quote and forgot about it. His writings were mandatory in school literature classes, and his actions were taught in our history classes. Still today, I have and sometimes read an anthology of his writings.

So, when I am asked about my feelings and opinions on whether protests should be peaceful or not, I usually start with peaceful.

What does a peaceful protest mean?

In the US it means you will not engage in violence that can include everything from throwing bottles or destroying property to physically harming or killing people. I include property damage because we are a capitalist society first. Our system cares more about property rights than human rights as evidenced by the fact that the prison sentences given out for property damage and theft are often much greater than the punishments for hurting another human being physically. Our system is a capitalist driven system and not the Judeo-Christian one they claim.

Dedicating yourself to protesting peacefully requires incredible strength. It requires you to take physical punishment without retaliation. This is a difficult concept for most humans and requires intense discipline. You will be pepper sprayed, beaten with batons and even tased. You might even die. At the heart of this type of protest is placing your body on the line. You are sacrificing your mental and physical well-being for a cause. The hope is that when the public witnesses the violence perpetrated on your peaceful body, they will become motivated to protest as well.

In the mid 1990s and early 2000s, I engaged in state violence as a Border Patrol agent. This violence was predominately directed towards the migrants I arrested, but also affected innocent civilians living in my patrol area. As an agent, I thankfully was not ordered to engage in crowd control or protests. My experience in these areas came after I left the agency.

Watching the last 10 years of protesting in the US, it is clear that the game has changed significantly for the police. In the past, there was little cohesiveness operationally between law enforcement agencies. After 9/11 and under the guise of fighting terrorism, DHS has literally created a national police force led by ICE, Border Patrol and CBP that then order other federal law enforcement officers to include state and local cops to bring in the violence. They are now one highly trained and efficient unit creating scenarios where their use of force is considered justified by courts. De-escalation techniques are nowhere to be found and are honestly laughed at by cops during training. Escalation is the only game.

Years ago, I read Nimmi Gowrinathan’s Radicalizing Her: Why Women Choose Violence, a study of how and why women choose to be violent. This book greatly affected me because it did away with the gender biased notions that violent women are usually coerced or mentally ill and snapped when they commit violence. Although the book centers on Sri Lanka, the lessons can be extrapolated to our situation. Why do humans respond with violence? In Gowrinathan’s words, “Violence, for me, and for the women I chronicle in this book, is simply a political reality.” Our cultures, our civil rights tend to only respect and change because of violence, and it is the government who decides what the definition of violence is.

My thoughts on violent protests have been shaped by all of these factors. While I will always turn towards peaceful demonstrations of protest first, I do recognize that violence is sometimes the only means to change. It’s also important to accept that others are in different places. Some of us are at a place in our lives where we have the discipline to protest peacefully, to take it. Others have the abilities to protest by boycotting or calling representatives. Some may intend to be non-violent and then change to violent protests. And yes, others will be motivated to protest the violence being brought to their communities and loved ones with violence.

How you protest is an individual decision affected by many factors. As Dr. King once stated, "A riot is the language of the unheard."

Borderland Talk with Jenn Budd is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.