this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Violence was the spark. The decades of creative, thoughtful non-violent protest and soft influence that followed is what gave rights.
Without the plausible threat of action, you will be ignored. Action could be violence (eg: throwing a brick at a cop), or economic (eg: we're all going to stop working for you, we're all going to stop spending money at your business). But there needs to be something.
When it's just "we meet up for an hour on saturday, sing, and go then home," that's just not very effective on its own. You can sing and dance, but there needs to be a backing of "If you don't treat us well, we can hurt you" if you want to be taken seriously.
That's all true, but getting together to sing and dance helps form the family who has your back when the violence starts. And in times of deep threat, it reminds everyone of the world you're fighting for.
Yes, being out and visible is helpful. You can form bonds, and get people off the fence when they see they're not alone, or you're just people like anyone else. But as I said, that's not enough on its own.
That's where the "creative" and "thoughtful" parts come in.
Showing up to yell in a park, or on a busy street, or at an empty building are thoughtless protest actions. Creative disruption captures attention in a non-destructive way and encourages reflection by those who witness it. Blocking traffic or throwing paint on priceless works of art certainly captures attention, but not the kind that encourages reflection.
ACT UP was really good at this sort of thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_UP
Depends on who's attention you're trying to get. The audience isn't always "the masses" but can be select politicians who need a reminder that things that care about can be threatened. If they don't listen to that level of anger, they might just lose the next election.
There's also the fact that countries like the US have entered an exceptionally violent era, where civil liberties don't exist and there are no legal levers to pull to influence federal policy. People will die from disintegrating regulations and dangerous public health. The government and working class are being pillaged by the wealthy, leading to a net decrease in national wealth, power and influence. People are being deported to concentration camps and companies are sponsoring it.
I hope you're talking about a non US perspective, but even if you are, you're still incorrect about how progress works. Gandhi movement brought about violent progress when he was ignored and imprisoned, while even efforts within a democratic state need to be seriously willing to withhold political support to get anywhere.
Every movement has multiple parts, the peaceful protest and demands crowd, and the threat of action crowd that drives our oppressors to the bargaining table with the peaceful protesters
Liberal ahh thought
Ah yes, when the organizations sanitized out trans people, an integral part of stonewall, that gave us plenty of rights /s