Why Civil Disobedience Is the Answer, Not Violence and Destruction

Published by PolisPandit on May 31, 2020May 31, 2020

Civil disobedience must be the mechanism for social change, not violence and destruction.  Over the past few nights, protestors have taken to the streets to avenge and call attention to the gruesome death of George Floyd.  It should be understandable to anyone why people are angry.  The police brutality witnessed by the world when a video surfaced of a white police officer pressing his knee into a black Minneapolis man’s neck for almost nine minutes, ultimately leading to his death, was horrific and shocking.  Floyd’s pleas that he was suffocating were ignored.  The local Hennepin County Prosecutor was slow to indict the white police officer, Derek Chauvin.  Charges did come after some political pressure days later and now Chauvin could face up to 25 years in prison on a third-degree murder charge and up to 10 years in prison on a second-degree manslaughter charge.      

For many people, that justice against the cop is not enough.  An attorney for Floyd’s family published a statement after the charges were announced that stated, “We want a first-degree murder charge.  And we want to see the other officers arrested.”  Protests broke out throughout the country, some of them nonviolent, but many others that devolved into destruction. 

This impulse to violence and property damage is understandable when everything else seems to fall on deaf ears.  Historically disenfranchised minority groups may think this is the only means to having their voices heard.  Taking a knee during the National Anthem has not been enough.  While I am not black or part of a minority group and cannot fully empathize with racism or police brutality, violence and destruction cannot be the means used to achieve equality and racial justice.  Unless it is the position of those protesting that the only remedy is a bloody coup d’etat, history suggests that civil disobedience and persistent nonviolent protest are effective means to justice.   

Violence Detracts From the Message and Destroys the Community

Images from the last few nights looked more like scenes from “The Purge” than an effective protest. On Saturday, May 30th, Seattle police arrested 27 people on suspicion of offenses including assault, arson and looting. Over 500 people were arrested in Los Angeles and six police officers were injured. Violent protests were also carried out in numerous other American cities, including Miami, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Although some protests remained peaceful, many resorted to violence and destruction. Seattle City Council member Tammy Morales said it best.

“My fear is that tomorrow the headline is going to be ‘Nordstorm windows broken,’ and we’re not going to talk about the fact that Black people are suffering.”

In Portland, Oregon, protestors broke into police headquarters and lit fires inside. The Soho neighborhood in New York City similarly burned.

Minneapolis, Minnesota has been at the epicenter of the protests from the beginning. The city has already experienced days of violence and riots.

All of this begs the question – is this widespread violence designed to call attention to systemic racism or to take advantage of a situation? It is hard to watch some of the scenes from my home in New York City and wonder how many of these protestors actually live here. Is that your neighborhood where you are damaging property and lighting the streets on fire? How would you feel if that was your car, store, or house?

Apart from taking advantage of a situation, this type of violence and destruction detracts from the primary message of racial equality. While some protests remained peaceful, those gatherings were largely silenced by the mayhem created by other violent actors. The destruction often seemed senseless – looting luxury stores in Soho, lighting random cars on fire, and damaging private property owned by small businesses already struggling in a Coronavirus-plagued economy. That type of destruction only serves to divide and distract from the message that needs to be communicated to government officials and police departments across the country. Simply put, violent protests place the cartridge box before the ballot box.

Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence Work

Over the course of human history, civil disobedience and nonviolence have been proven means toward communicating a message and affecting change. From the Boston Tea Party to the women’s suffragette movement and the Gandhi-led resistance to British imperialism in India; from the Martin Luther King Jr.-led civil rights movement and the resistance to apartheid in South Africa, to the democracy movement in Myanmar/Burma, history has shown that civil disobedience has been an important mechanism for social change.

Nonviolence is essential for effective civil disobedience and protest. As the philosopher John Rawls stated, “Any interference with the civil liberties of others tends to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one’s act.” By burning private property and looting stores, protestors infringe on the rights of others, thereby diminishing their standing and the weight of their arguments.

Violent and destructive acts also antagonize potential allies. Martin Luther King Jr. did not advocate for violence or destruction of property because he knew that the fight for civil rights required allies. He needed broad support from all Americans, not just African Americans. The “Southern Strategy” as it was known eventually worked, culminating in a southern Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson, signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Had civil rights leaders like Rosa Parks and MLK promoted violence and destruction instead of nonviolent civil disobedience, that bill would likely not have become law. Violence would have delayed progress at best.

The protests in the case of George Floyd similarly require a broad swath of American support. Violence detracts and distracts from the overarching message that the Floyd family lawyer has tried to resonate with federal, state, and local officials: “to fix the policies and training deficiencies [in police departments] that permitted this unlawful killing.” Moreover, violence invites the government to use aggressive and even lethal countermeasures. The weight of an argument should be able to stand on its own rhetorical legs without the need to bash it into people’s brains.

For those who argue that violence is sometimes necessary to be heard, particularly for those less privileged, that may be true in limited circumstances, but the ultimate goal of violence must be understood by all. As a means to an end, it should be relied on only as a revolutionary option of last resort. The end goal in those scenarios is often the overthrow of government and regime change. We have witnessed this throughout history in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the French Revolution in 1789, and of course, the American Revolution in 1776.

The current state of racial equality and progress in America needs reform, but it does not need revolution. Violence and destruction are not needed to affect change in a country with strong democratic institutions, which remain steadfast despite the current administration’s persistent attempts to undermine them. Violent and destructive attempts to vocalize frustration and injustice will only serve to further antagonize an already polarized country bursting at the seams. Satyagraha, as advocated for by Gandhi, has been proven to work as a means of passive political resistance. This approach rightly posits that unjust means of violence and destruction cannot lead to just ends. Means and ends are inseparable. In order to achieve the just end of racial equality, we must take just means to get there.

Coronavirus, Anyone?

The recent protests seem to forget the elephant in the room of America: we are still in the midst of a pandemic. Most U.S. cities still have social distancing measures in place. While freedom of assembly is important, we need to heal first as a nation from a virus that has brought the economy to its knees (despite what the stock market may tell you). The last thing small business owners need right now is vandalized stores and damage to their private property. The last thing we need as a country is the further spreading of this virus, especially if a second wave arrives in the fall. It was hard not view these protests, at least in part, as a result of a country that is tired of sheltering in place and quarantining.

Regardless of protesting motives, federal, state, and local governments need to take a hard look at policing in the United States. Officers who use unnecessary and excessive force must be held accountable – in a swift manner. What we saw happen to George Floyd was a brutal display of force that was extreme and unprovoked. His death should not be in vain.

In order to heal and progress as a democracy, however, protests cannot devolve into violence and destruction. Extreme acts of that nature will only antagonize, distract, and devalue a position that everyone should agree on in 21st century America: racial justice and equality for all. While we can empathize with why some may think that violence is the only way to reach those ends, we cannot condone or permit it if we want American democracy to survive. Civil disobedience and nonviolent protest work. With over 200 years of experience, America has shown time and again that the ballot box is a far more effective means of change than the cartridge box.