People love to claim, you have to be calm as you protest, you have to speak in a way that the powerful will respect, you have to dress in a way that doesnât alienate people. But following such rules does not matter. Thereâs no right way to protest your own dehumanization and your communityâs destruction, especially when your country insists that thereâs nothing violent, uncivilized, and un-American about how it routinely dehumanizes and destroys certain populations.
This quote in particular presents the idea that you cannot tell a group of people that there is a ârightâ or âwrongâ way to protest, especially a group that witnesses murder, violence and dehumanization of its community on a daily basis. Telling black people to be âcalmâ and âpeacefulâ is an attempt to turn the issues they face into non-issues. By saying they shouldnât protest violently, it is making it out to seem like these arenât events that would or should evoke emotions as strong as anger or violence.Â