By
J. Pharoah Doss
Thursday, January 1, 2015.
Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing
without a demand.” Douglass’ demand was
specific, the abolishment of slavery.
The movement to end slavery even named themselves after their demand. They were called abolitionist. What are the
specific demands of modern protesters?
I remember during the Bush
administration I asked an anti-war demonstrator, “Why are you protesting the
war?”
He said, “Because the president
lied.”
During the occupy Wall Street
movement I met a participant. I asked
the young lady, “What exactly are you protesting?”
She said, “Corporate greed.”
After a white police officer was not
indicted by a grand jury for killing an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri
there was a rally in my home town of Pittsburgh. The protesters carried signs that read: Black Lives Matter and People of
Color Deserve Equality. The one sign
that actually stated a demand said: Stop Racist Police Terror.
What are these modern protesters asking power to
abolish? More importantly does the power
being protested have the power to abolish or change the circumstances?
Lying and greed are subjective
matters of morality. Congressional
staffers and elected officials assembled on the capital steps with their hands
up. Their reason was to show solidarity
with those protesting death caused by the police. But the only thing hands up can symbolize
from elected officials and their staff is that they’re powerless to legislate
morality.
The signs held by those protesting
the grand jury decision made basic statements no civilized person would
oppose. Of course black lives matter, of
course people of color deserve equality, and who would not oppose the concept
of racist police terror? But stopping
racist … fill in the blank is not a demand that can be rectified by those in
power. Power has limits. Racism is a belief in superiority. It can be held by any race. Holding this belief is a problem for the
holder alone. It becomes a social
problem when the holder puts this belief into practice and discriminates
against specific groups. But the
government has already legislated against discrimination.
So what is the purpose of modern
protest?
According to the editorial board of
The Gazette, Western’s Daily Student Newspaper, the purpose of protest … in all
of its various forms, has the same goal --
To create
awareness of an issue.
Really? I don’t think Douglass and the abolitionist
sought to create awareness of the institution of slavery.
Protest is defined by Dictionary.com
as: An expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often
in opposition to something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid.
When Trayvon Martin, a black teen,
was shot and killed by a Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida the
police did not arrest the volunteer. People
protested across the country. But they
weren't raising awarness of neighborhood watch violence or racial
profiling. They demanded the arrest of
the shooter. As demonstration grew, the
demand grew, and power conceded. The
shooter was arrested and tried for second degree murder.
Too often modern protests generalize
grievances government can not legislate and corporate policy can not
regulate. They mistake activity for
activism. They painfully demonstrate a
collective powerlessness that the powerful are fully aware of without a public
display. And if Frederick Douglass could
address modern protesters he might say, “Protest conveys nothing to power
without a specific demand.”
J. Pharoah Doss attended Geneva College. His writing has appeared in The New
Pittsburgh Courier, The Commonline Joural, and Gutter Eloquence Magazine. He blogs at http://jpharoahdoss.blogspot.com