Hey protesters, I have a message for you.

[ReindeerThistle]

A few thoughts in the OP:
1. Portland. Nuff said. While we have an organization there, as well as down the road in Hillsboro, the preponderance of the populace is best represented by the show Portlandia. There is no figuring them out.

2. Protesting "G" for "goverment" is immature and ineffective. If you are "gaining awareness," well, too late. Unless you're Rip Van Winkle, likely you are "aware" of the Ferguson situation.

3. By disrupting an unrelated event, you isolate people who could be allies in your fight. Most people (91% or thereabouts) are unhappy with their National government. The job of an organizer is to show those people WHY, and to offer them an alternative. You cannot instill revolutionary consciousness where it does not exist. You only speak to those who listen.

 

[hangman]

As aelf said, the lines have already been drawn. From what I saw, the protests are less about "raising awareness" (a hollow goal anyway; if you weren't aware of police racism and violence by now, you're not going to be convinced) and more about provoking racist reactions. Racism in the U.S. has become taboo, even though many still hold racist attitudes. They will deny until the cows come home that they are racist, even if they are the leaders of the KKK (see: David Duke). There is no way to make oblivious (if well-intentioned) white people to see the racism that exists here other than to drag it out into the open. Although it is still early, the NAACP bombing would be an unthinkable hate crime to most people here, even though the hatred that drives it is still quite prevalent. One protest in my hometown received a deluge of credible vehicular assault threats. The few who showed up brought guns "in case anything happened" (nothing "happened" for the record).

Also, to hell with respectability politics. It's just not possible to have civil disobedience without the disobedience. It's been 50 years since the Civil Rights Movement. In many ways, America is still as segregated and racialized as it was then. Us millennials tried doing it your way...nobody listened. Now we're going to do it our way.

Yeah, but acting like dicks at people's funerals is going to probably hurt the movement a lot more than it is going to help it. I mean, that's why pretty much everyone hates a certain "church"...

The only people who did that were the NYPD. The incident in the OP was not a funeral.

Are black USians that big a minority? I thought Spexicans were outnumbering them.

Yes, but only in certain areas. Louisiana and Mississippi are 40-50% black in many areas. New Orleans is around 65% black.

A large part of the problem is that fewer African-Americans vote, which isn't always entirely down to laziness. It's harder for various reasons to vote if you're black, or working-class for that matter. That is particularly the case in the South, where African-Americans are more numerous anyway.

I'd also argue that their general disenfranchisement from the current two-party system has radicalized a not-insignificant number of them into minor leftist parties. But as we all know, third parties barely stand a chance here, so it's pointless to vote third party most of the time.

It seems to me that trying to "rally the troops" and getting people to turn out to voting stations en masse would be a really good way of furthering the agenda here. I never put it down to laziness that the turnouts have been so low - just general apathy and a general atmosphere of "voting doesn't really work, so who cares".

Imagine if at the next election there was an 80% voter turn out rate in African-American communities. Wouldn't this lead to some change? .. Is it unrealistic?

The problem is that voting will absolutely not fix the problems we have. They are systemic and deeply rooted. You would have to scrap large swaths of the judiciary to fix it, which is why a large number of activists are calling for revolution.

 

[luiz]

And you think revolution will happen? Seriously? Of course voting is the only realistic answer.

If the lines are really already drawn then what is this achieving anyway?

Another thing. "Millenials" don't have a mandate from God to fix the world, though all young generations seem to think they do. Whatever change you want will have to be negotiated with all other generations that are still breathing.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes, but only in certain areas. Louisiana and Mississippi are 40-50% black in many areas. New Orleans is around 65% black.

So, if they all voted, even though the Senate seats would be lost, they could still force state legislators and some representatives onto the ballot. Why don't they have black candidate with black-only issues? Is the 'end of ideologies' very much still in force in the US?

I'd also argue that their general disenfranchisement from the current two-party system has radicalized a not-insignificant number of them into minor leftist parties. But as we all know, third parties barely stand a chance here, so it's pointless to vote third party most of the time.

That, sadly, reminds me of the two/three-party system in Ingerland.

Another thing. "Millenials" don't have a mandate from God to fix the world, though all young generations seem to think they do. Whatever change you want will have to be negotiated with all other generations that are still breathing.

Everyone has a mandate to fix the world.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Everyone has a mandate to fix the world.

Unfortunately, some have decided to buy their mandates from the gun shop.

 

[hangman]

And you think revolution will happen? Seriously? Of course voting is the only realistic answer.

Never said I thought it would or wouldn't happen, not that it matters anyway. What I'm saying is that the U.S. police/justice system is so racialized that there's essentially no way to fix it through current mechanisms deemed legitimate.

If the lines are really already drawn then what is this achieving anyway?

We don't have to accept that racists will or should have the upper hand. At this point, like I said, protests serve to drag racism out into the light. Additionally, certain protest tactics are designed to have economic consequences (occupying spaces, highways, stores, etc.), the idea being that if politicians will not listen to the populace, they may listen to corporations if their profits are impacted.

Another thing. "Millenials" don't have a mandate from God to fix the world, though all young generations seem to think they do.

Never said that. And that's an assumption I don't care to speculate on.

Whatever change you want will have to be negotiated with all other generations that are still breathing.

The idea of racially equal justice and policing is non-controversial across generations, even among most of the right wing. They simply don't realize the scope of the problem in many cases. Part of that may be that young people are disproportionately involved in altercations, especially regarding drugs and stop-and-frisk.

So, if they all voted, even though the Senate seats would be lost, they could still force state legislators and some representatives onto the ballot. Why don't they have black candidate with black-only issues? Is the 'end of ideologies' very much still in force in the US?

Two words: racial gerrymandering. In the U.S., congressional districts must be reapportioned every ten years, according to census data. The people in charge of drawing the districts are chosen by the governor(?), which guarantees a partisan spin on it. If it's blatantly unfair, they will be redone by the feds (who usually do a good job), but a lot of gerrymandering gets through. In my home state (Louisiana), we have enough Democratic voters to easily support 2 Dem seats and 4 Rep seats. However, one district was drawn to pack as many black and liberal voters in New Orleans and Baton Rouge as possible, ignoring cultural or geographic continuity, thereby shifting the balance to 1 and 5. Black voters outside of that district (#2) essentially get no say in who represents them.

Also note that Cajuns, who comprise about a third of the population, only get a single Cajun-majority district (#3), while the rest of Acadiana is split between all the other districts. Cajuns tend to be very anti-English-only and liberal on drugs/alcohol, which is a source of tension between the generally conservative Cajuns and the Republicans they vote for.

I'd like to see the geographic districts abolished completely, so we'd get six at-large districts, and also implement ranked choice voting. It would pave the way for some degree of multi-party elections. I'm not sure how constitutional that is though.