[freedomben]

Seriously asking: did those three go around to existing events and hijack them? e.g. Did they jump on stage and grab the microphones, or did they block traffic so nobody could get through? Or did they threaten people with violence for passing through having contrary opinions?

My understanding after reading "King" by Jonathan Eig (a fantastic biography btw, highly recommend to everyone) is that they didn't do that kind of stuff. They marched alongside traffic and were so non-violent that they allowed themselves to be hit with dogs and high-pressure water hoses without responding.

Rosa Parks especially was not like most "activists" today. She clamly and peacefully kept her seat on the bus. Maybe the former Google employee activists who refused to leave the conference room would be similar here, though there are of course differences.

I consider myself an activist, and I believe strongly that people need to help raise awareness because there is far too much ignorance and apathy out there, but I agree with GP and siblings that many of the activists today are harming their own cause by being obnoxious. Raising awareness in an empathetic way is the right way to do it, not trying to bully people into agreeing.

[ada1981]

Yes, this is exactly what they did.

Rosa Parks “got in the way” by not leaving a seat she wasn’t legally allowed to sit in. She disrupted the flow of the white passengers. Today people would say “why doesn’t she protest elsewhere? She’s just getting in the way of bus riders who are trying to get to work.”

Sit ins were lead by MLK. People would go into restaurants, order food, and refuse to leave until they were served, despite being told they had to leave because of (legal) race laws. Today they’d be told they should protest elsewhere, that there is a time and a place, and they are hurting their cause by creating a disturbance.

Thoreau explicitly states you have a moral obligation to oppose unjust laws, etc. and resist governments, etc.

Empathetic awareness raising is one way and often not sufficient.

Read kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

1) determine if an injustice is actually being committed 2) attempt to talk with those committing the injustice to resolve it 3) prepare spiritually for non-violent resistance to evil 4) engage in non-violent resistance, protest only after all other means are exhausted, be prepared to be beaten and do not fight back, and 4 is only a means to get back to 2 — to open negotiations and discussions to restore justice.

The greatest “harm” to a cause is often passive silence.

Sitting by and critiquing activists is often a pastime of folks who stand to benefit from the preservation of the status quo and who have no real desire for immediate change.

Here is King reading his Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Worth the 50 minutes to listen.

https://youtu.be/ATPSht6318o?si=37312G9PxNHyYAEs

[freedomben]

Thank you for the thoughtful response. You've given me much to think about!

I still intuitively see a difference between staying in the seat you paid for and got to first, and using a restaurant/diner the way it was intended, and people blocking traffic (which often includes hitting/attacking cars that try to get by). To be more equivalent though, I think Rosa Parks would have had to block the white passengers from getting on the bus, or the sit-in would block everybody from entering/patronizing the establishment. Had they done that, I think things would have turned out very differently because (rightly or wrongly) they cease to be sympathetic and reasonable figures in many people's eyes.

Other than that, I'm in full agreement with what you said. Also thank you for the Letter from Birmingham Jail read in his own words. So good :-)

[ada1981]

They did block white folks from using the facilities, and they’d often fill an entire diner, try to order and not leave until they were served.

Of course, they weren’t served and were often drug out and beaten or had dogs turned loose on them or sprayed down with water hoses.

I hope you enjoy Kings reading, it really should be required before anyone posts MLK quotes or memes.

[dgfitz]

> Rosa Parks “got in the way"..." "...She’s just getting in the way of bus riders who are trying to get to work

You had to quote "got in the way" so even you realize what a bad rebuttal it is. And sitting in a seat designed to be sat in is not getting in the way, not even a little bit. (Standing in the middle of traffic is actually what most people consider 'getting in the way')

> Sit ins were lead by MLK. People would go into restaurants, order food, and refuse to leave until they were served

So people went to an establishment that expected, and was designed, to serve patrons. And they "got in the way" by sitting at a table? Your words lose meaning when they're disingenuous.

> Sitting by and critiquing activists is often a pastime of folks who stand to benefit from the preservation of the status quo and who have no real desire for immediate change.

You ruined whatever tenuous point you were trying to make with this line. Blocking traffic for hours and hours because "my protest is more important than ANYTHING ELSE" is such an entitled, arrogant way to think.

[ada1981]

It’s getting in the way of white people.

They weren’t legally allowed to be there.

It wasn’t designed for them.

They would actually take up all the seats and yes, they would prevent the “people” ie the white folks who the seats were designed for, from using the infrastructure for what it was intended - to serve white folks.

In my view, it’s entitled arrogant to assume that your subjective view is reality.

[dgfitz]

So disingenuous.

Sitting down is getting in getting in the way of privilege, which she nailed. Sitting in a seat isn’t actually getting in the way of anyone.

“Wasn’t designed for them” really makes you sound like blacks butts are different than white butts. I mean, what the fuck?

[ada1981]

I’m not sure what you don’t understand.

Imagine I come to your home and sleep in your bed.

I’m preventing you from sleeping and I’m trespassing.

You might not understand the actual impact of these laws.

When folks did sit ins they were actively preventing other people from using those services.

And these services were not for black folks.

Again, a white person goes to a diner and can’t eat because it’s filled with black people who refuse to leave until they are served. It’s against the law for them to be there, because they are black.

The spaces were designed for whites, like the drinking fountain that says “white only”.

[text0404]

you only think it's entitled and arrogant because you don't understand that protestors are protesting for people who don't have a voice, who's pleas fall on deaf ears like your own. your conception of protest is something an individual does to advance their own personal cause, so of course you only conceive of it as selfish - because you yourself do it for selfish reasons.

your selective memory of King and Parks is a disservice to their legacies. in "Letter from a Birmingham jail", MLK warns us about the kind of performative activism you espouse: https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-.... here's where you should pay attention:

> I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'

> Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

- MLK

[ada1981]

It’s wild.

I sold my first software internationally at age 10; but I attended my first anti KKK protest on my dad’s shoulders at age 5.

Grateful I had people in my life who exposed me to direct action, freedom of speech and assembly, and I understand that the importance of helping others struggle for freedom.

[freedomben]

> you only think it's entitled and arrogant because you don't understand that protestors are protesting for people who don't have a voice, who's pleas fall on deaf ears like your own. your conception of protest is something an individual does to advance their own personal cause, so of course you only conceive of it as selfish - because you yourself do it for selfish reasons.

You really sullied what was otherwise a very powerful comment with this unnecessary and unfair personal attack against GP.

In some ways this is an interesting microcosm of the activism we're discussing, where people take a worthy and often powerful cause, and self-sabotage it by being arrogant, condescending, and rude to the people they are trying to convert.

[dgfitz]

> you only think it's entitled and arrogant because you don't understand that protestors are protesting for people who don't have a voice, who's pleas fall on deaf ears like your own.

I do understand that, absolutely, and my ears aren’t deaf.

So you’re saying the protesters are justified in belligerent and deviant behavior because their cause is just? According to whom?

[ada1981]

Am I correct in that you’ve never taken part in any kind of meaningful activism or advocacy work?

“Deviant” behavior.. this is civil disobedience.

[dgfitz]

> … people who don't have a voice, who's pleas fall on deaf ears like your own.

If they didn’t have a voice how are they able to awaken protesters to their cause?

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