"One
of the most consistent answers I got was that protesters should realize
that protests aren’t enough. There’s a real risk of catharsis being the
start and end of the resistance to Trump: Protesting feels good and
righteous, but if nothing comes after then it may not accomplish that
much. It’s key, therefore, to understand the limits of protests and to
put them in a broader activism context. 'There are some people that
think that protests solve everything; you just have a protest, it’s
going to make everything change,' said Fabio Rojas, a professor at
Indiana University and the author of From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline. 'That’s not true — it is a tool that does a very specific thing, and you have to understand that when you start out.'
Protests
are effective — sometimes very effective, in the case of big ones — at
drawing attention to a given cause, and all else being equal they have
an impact. 'There’s a lot of research showing that there is an effect of
protest on policy,' he said. 'If you protest rather than do nothing,
that does seem to attract attention, and that does seem to make
institutions lean in your direction.' But beyond that, it’s important,
Rojas said, to have a clear sense of what a given protest is for.' What are you really trying to accomplish with a protest? Are you
trying to influence a specific policy? Are you trying to build
solidarity within the movement? Are you trying to persuade people who
are watching the movement, or even trying to persuade people on the
other side of the movement?'”
What to protest about and what to do along with protesting seem to be 2 key parts of success.
No comments:
Post a Comment