Outrage flooded social media after a video showed an activist being arrested mid-interview at a pro-Venezuela protest, fuelling questions about the state of free speech in the United States.
In the now-viral clip taken from Grand Rapids, Michigan, 22-year-old teacher and activist Jessica Plichta can be heard criticising US foreign policy towards Venezuela, arguing that American involvement abroad is inseparable from domestic accountability.
“This isn’t just a foreign issue,” she said moments before her arrest. “It’s our tax dollars being used to commit war crimes, and it’s the responsibility of the people to resist a Trump administration committing crimes both at home and against people in Venezuela.”
Seconds later, local police move in. As she is escorted to a patrol vehicle, Plichta repeatedly states, “I am not resisting arrest.”
Local outlet WZZM, the city’s ABC affiliate, later reported that police said Plichta was arrested for obstructing a roadway and failing to obey a lawful command. In footage from the scene, an officer tells a bystander that demonstrators had been instructed to relocate their protest to the sidewalk, and alleged that the group instead blocked intersections until the march concluded.
I mean, it was a large factor in the Women’s Suffrage and Civil Rights movements.
ARMED protest specifically in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers were strategically competent in taking advantage of open carry laws. Those laws still exist in certain areas of the country and absolutely should be taken advantage of if any protest movement is to be taken seriously. I mean, this is still baby talk. It does not even rise to civil disobedience since it is within the law.
But were these protests organized, planned and approved by officials?
And mostly was it peaceful protests?
I mean, yes and no. One of the if not THE most prominent figures, Dr MLK Jr was adamantly peaceful. Suffrage was pretty peaceful too.
There were certainly others that weren’t and they still had net positive gains.
But I get your point. It certainly seems like the only way out of this is more violence. But we could do this nicely through extreme collective action. That’s a hard thing to hope for though.
“We can do this nicely” reeks of the “negative peace which is the absence of tension” which MLK wrote about in the Birmingham jail letter. If by “doing this nicely” you mean unarmed, nonviolent protest, then the jury is still very much out on whether that can achieve meaningful change. Also, do you believe in civil disobedience? That is, does your version of “doing this nicely” preclude breaking unjust laws? If so, you will achieve nothing.
I wish you are right, but they try very hard to make people snap !