The Black community cannot be expected to remain peaceful when they are  constantly brutalized and dehumanized under the system of white supremacy in America. Radical change is needed. Niceness and compassion for the oppressors will never foster liberation. 

Non-Black people have always criticized the Black community about their manner of protesting. Black people have always been expected to protest peacefully in response to the white supremacy and anti-Blackness, which is eradicating them daily. Even though nonviolence is a strong form of protest, it has failed to achieve liberation for the Black community.  White supremacy is still embedded in society; it has evolved from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration and policing. 

Nonviolence never contributed to the freedom of the enslaved; in fact, the Civil War was fought over whether slavery should remain in society. Slave patrols, known as police in today’s modern society, were created to establish terror for enslaved Black people. During the Jim Crow era, police were used to enforce and exert brutality on any Black Americans that violated any Jim Crow law. 

Mass incarceration, which is an extension of slavery, disproportionately imprisons Black people. The 13^th amendment provides a loophole in which involuntary servitude is illegal except for a punishment of a crime. This flaw has created a criminal justice system that imprisons Black people at a very high rate, as they are five times more likely to be incarcerated than their white counterparts.  

Since white supremacy and anti-Blackness are inherently violent, the fight against these oppressive structures must be violent as well in order to dismantle them fully. History has demonstrated that rebellions in America, such as Nat Turner’s Rebellion and the Stono Rebellion, have led to institutional change in the country.

Stono Rebellion was the largest uprising of enslaved people. On September 9, 1739, enslaved people in South Caroline tried escaping to freedom in St. Augustine,  Florida, and killed twenty to thirty white people along the way.

Nat Turner’s Rebellion was a rebellion of enslaved people led by Nat Turner in Virginia which resulted in the death of fifty-five to sixty-five white people, going down in history as the deadliest uprising by the enslaved. 

White America has always cherry picked which acts of violence they condemn and accept. Consider all the times white individuals have rioted over ridiculous reasons: When the Giants won the World Series in 2012, large numbers of white people went on a rampage through the streets.  

The group set a bus aflame, smashed windows and injured several people. When Black people rebel in this country in response to four hundred years of racial injustice, such action is deemed wrong, whereas riots consisting of white people are never societally condemnded.

Violence initiated by the oppressed is a direct result of the violence which oppressors are responsible for— it is self-defense. Malcolm X, a minister, civil rights activist and prominent Black nationalist leader, promulgated a message of self-defense during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

“Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks,” he said.

There is a difference between a rebellion and a riot. A rebellion is an act of violence or open resistance to injustice, but a riot is chaotic violence with no motive.  

Historically, Black people have armed themselves to defend against police brutality.  The Black Panther Party was an organization founded in 1966 to challenge police brutality. Members of the group were easily recognized by their characteristic black berets and black leather jackets; they organized armed citizen patrols in Oakland and other U.S. cities.  

When Black people peacefully protest, they are always met with violent resistance, most of the time by the people who are sworn to protect and serve. Police have almost always attacked Black protestors first; it is rarely in reverse.

Police have been videotaped tear gassing Black Lives Matter protestors, shooting them with rubber bullets, severely beating them and committing several more abhorrent and disgusting atrocities. 

During the demonstrations and protests for Walter Wallace, Jr, a Black man killed in Philadelphia by the police in 2020, the cops dragged Rickia Young, a twenty-nine-year-old nurse aide, from her car and severely beat her.

On May 30, 2020, Brandon Saenz was protesting in Dallas, Texas when the police shattered his eye with a rubber bullet. 

Anthony Evans was protesting on May 31, 2020, in Austin, Texas when he was shot  with a rubber bullet. The bullet shattered his jaw which led him to have two surgeries and a titanium plate to repair the damage.  

In 2020, during the protests for George Floyd, the federal government targeted Black Lives Matter protests. Protesters were charged with overly severe penalties, such as federal crimes. According to a report from The Movement for Black Lives, a  coalition of Black advocacy groups, “90% of federal cases against Black Lives Matter protesters could have been charged in state court – and that in 88% of those cases, the  federal charges carried more severe penalties than similar state charges.” 

In order to promote the notion of nonviolence, it should be directed towards the oppressors, not the oppressed. 

At the end of the day, no form of protest will be acceptable to the white masses; respectability politics will not save Black people. Respectability politics is a set of beliefs holding that conformity to prescribed mainstream standards of appearance and behavior will protect a person who is part of a marginalized and oppressed group.

As Audre Lorde, a Black intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist said, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to  temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change”. 

Black lives come before white comfort. Change rarely happens when comfortability is the priority. Violent protests challenge the comfortability of privileged people and ignites change. 

Stokley Carmichael, a prominent organizer in the U.S. Civil Rights movement and the global pan-African movement, stated, “For nonviolence to work, your  opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none”. 

Nonviolence will never sway the oppressors to give freedom to the oppressed. 

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By JOSHUA WEEKS

Contributor