I can’t decide for others about what’s a good protest and what isn’t.  But I think it’s healthy to start some discussion of the pros and cons.  Steve Ahlquist already began the debate last week in an article suggesting that Trump should be shouted down and chased out of the state.  I’d like to speak up for the other side.  As the discussion goes on, people will make their own decisions, whether it’s to promote the belligerent confrontation that Trump seems to relish or to look for alternative ways of dealing with the situation.

Can disruptive protests be a good thing?  I’m sure they can, in the right situations.  Take what happened at Brown University in 2013, when Ray Kelly, then the chief of New York City police, was invited to speak.  Some Brown students and Providence residents decided to hold a protest then, for several reasons. Kelly had been responsible for a stop-and-frisk program that often turned abusive towards innocent people, particularly people of color. Kelly’s police aggressively worked to disrupt protests against things like the Wall Street bailout. Kelly conducted intensive spying on Muslim communities, considering Muslims as belonging to suspicious “ancestries of interest”, and conducted police operations far outside his legal jurisdiction as part of this effort.  But it wasn’t just Kelly’s record that inspired the protest.  The protest was also because people were concerned about Brown University’s agenda.

When Brown invited Ray Kelly, they didn’t just invite him to speak.  The university gave him an especially honored speaking slot, the annual Krieger Memorial Lecture.  Perhaps they thought this was appropriate — his status as the then chief of New York City’s police counted in his favor.  Although there were plenty of known bad spots on Kelly’s record, university officials’ treatment of Kelly was focused on his high prestige instead.  Further, the university arranged for Rhode Island police to be seated in special rows in the audience to better take in Kelly’s talk, “Proactive Policing”.  The message was that Kelly had something important to say to Rhode Island police.  Many Rhode Islanders were seriously concerned about Kelly’s record and thought that there were better alternatives to Kelly’s “proactive policing” that deserved to be heard.  But Brown University didn’t give the same kind of honored speaking opportunity to those who are hurt by over-aggressive policing even here in Rhode Island, nor to those who present alternatives to Kelly’s aggressive practices.  The night before Kelly was due to speak, a few dozen concerned people met together on Brown’s central lawn, and Joe Buchanan of South Providence made one of the best speeches I’ve heard at Brown.  Someone like him from South Providence, or any regular Rhode Islander who had something to say about police practices, would be very unlikely to get the kind of honored speaking opportunity Kelly got or even to speak officially at Brown at all — that’s not how Brown works.  It should be clear, by the way, that the protest wasn’t about trying to stop Kelly’s views from being heard.  The problem was that Brown was promoting Kelly’s approach to policing and not giving much consideration to alternatives.  If Kelly had been invited to speak as part of a panel, where another view could have been heard as well, there would have been little or no protest.

In the end, when Kelly’s speech was scheduled to begin, there was a lot of heckling.  I had taken part. to a small extent, in the preparations for the Kelly protest, though I didn’t get into the room where he was scheduled to speak because it was full.  Inside the room, some protesters, as planned, presented a statement of their own that they had prepared.  The plan had never been to stop Kelly from speaking entirely, but when Brown officials saw the heckling and found that not many of those in the room wanted to hear Kelly, they chose to cancel the speech.  Although the media didn’t do a good job of describing what the Ray Kelly protest was about, and some outside observers mistakenly thought the protest was aimed at censoring Kelly’s words, the protest did have a good effect.  It led to good conversations particularly inside Brown, and the university realized it had done something wrong in how it had given a platform to Kelly’s words to the exclusion of others’.  Brown hasn’t learned all the lessons it should here — it still isn’t that good a neighbor to the community, and doesn’t listen enough to ordinary Providence residents whether they’re white or they’re people of color.  But all in all, the protest did have a constructive effect on Brown, and it did a little bit to promote the views of those who want police to respect people’s rights more.

It’s tempting to put a Donald Trump rally in the same category as the Ray Kelly speech, and in many ways Trump is worse than Kelly was.  But is it a good idea to give Trump the belligerent confrontation that he feeds on?  There were disruptive protests against the Nazi party as the Nazis were gaining power, and the Nazis were able to use those protests to expand their appeal.

We’ve had protests against illiberal speakers before in Rhode Island, and it’s clear that these protests regularly end up escalating beyond what was originally planned.  Take what happened when a small media event was held at the RI State House in February by people who didn’t want Syrian refugees coming to Rhode Island.  Over a hundred protesters turned out hoping to support Syrian refugees.  Organizers had encouraged many to come to the pro-refugee protest, emphasizing in advance that the message should be positive.  But that wasn’t what happened.  Former congressman Pete Hoekstra was able to give his speech arguing against taking in Syrian refugees, despite considerable heckling.  But his fellow speaker Charles Jacobs, who did most of the talking, took a different approach.  He quickly got into a back-and-forth with many of the protesters, and said that he would feel vindicated if he was shouted down.  His words succeeded in achieving that result.  By making outrageous claims in defiance of common sense (such as his claim that Syrians are all taught in high school to be genocidal), and by provoking protesters further by saying things like “You know I’m right”, he successfully got many of the protesters to shout him down.  One mild-mannered protester, who joined others in yelling at him, said to me that his words felt like “blood libel”.  A number of the protesters didn’t take part in the shouting down, and I could see at the time that there were some who didn’t think it was a good idea.  But most of the protesters did end up shouting Jacobs down, despite organizers’ initial plans.

Protesting a Trump rally is likely to cause more problems.  At the Ray Kelly protest, and at February’s Syrian-refugee protest, there was no intention at the beginning to stop people from speaking.  But with Trump, people are already talking about trying to shut Monday’s Trump rally down.  That means there’s a high risk that things will go further than that, because these things have often ended up escalating beyond protesters’ initial intentions.

A good example is what happened at the only Trump rally which actually was shut down due to a protest, in Chicago on March 11.  It wasn’t just that people’s emotions got out of control — some protesters in Chicago were clearly deceiving themselves about what their emotions were, like the woman who held up a “No Hate” sign while joining in a loud “Fuck Trump” chant.  Some ripped up Trump signs, and there were tussles and fistfights between those on opposite sides of the Trump issue.  The evidence suggests that not all of the fights were started by Trump supporters.  One anti-Trump protester challenged someone else to fight — “You fucking neo-Nazi prick, come down here”, although the other person had done nothing more than speaking a few words.  (The protester wasn’t listening anyway — the person he was challenging to fight had just been saying “I don’t support Trump.)

This, of course, is the opposite of “We are the 99%”.  The shutdown of the Chicago rally didn’t hurt Trump at all, but it did involve physically attacking those in the 99% who have been persuaded to support Trump.  That makes them, and their allies, feel more threatened and more willing to support Trump. I talked to one Rhode Islander who is in favor of protesting a Trump rally, and he said that, yes, there might be some “collateral damage” (his term).  But taking actions that are likely to cause unplanned and often misdirected “collateral damage” amounts to sending a very public message of “We don’t care what happens to you”.

It’s well-known that one reason why Trump has been getting considerable support is that, to many of his supporters, he seems like the first person to run for president who is willing to seriously question what typical politicians say.  People like him for that reason, because they can see that there’s something wrong with the current system and they want someone who seems to be a strong alternative.  And it’s easy for Trump supporters to get persuaded that the angry protests against Trump are only a result of Trump’s opposing the system.  Negativity directed at Trump supporters, which is how these protests end up being perceived, will only lead Trump supporters to support him more as the person who can save them.  I know people may not want to face it, but Trump got a larger share of votes after the March 11 Chicago protest than before it.  This kind of protest is the opposite of winning people over — by demonstrating negativity towards Trump supporters, it strengthens Trump’s message that he is the one who will save you.

The fact that Monday’s rally is part of the presidential campaign makes it more likely that an angry protest won’t work as well as intended.  Of course, our election system is very far from representing the will of the people.  But many people, even those who have essentially given up on the election system, still retain hope that some day, the election system might have some role to play in changing things for the better.  The fact that the election system pays lip service to the idea of one person, one vote, causes elections to be viewed as symbolically important in giving influence to every state and every group of voters.  That’s just how elections are perceived.  Obviously, there can be no such thing as a fair vote if the group of people who support one candidate are prevented from holding a campaign rally.  That’s true no matter whether it’s a Trump rally, a Sanders rally, a Green party rally, or a rally by an independent socialist-party candidate.  Shutting the rally down is an attack on the right to have a fair vote, because it means that this one candidate’s supporters don’t get the chance to meet like other candidates’ supporters do.  And this isn’t something that can be justified by pointing to the many problems with our current election system.  If those who disagree with your group try to keep your group from holding a campaign rally, that’s saying that they don’t want your voting rights to mean much, but it’s saying more than that too.  Even if those who shut down the Chicago rally had carefully and patiently explained to the Trump supporters that their intention was to build a new, more democratic system in which everyone would have an equal voice, that message would have been so obviously hypocritical that it couldn’t possibly have been taken seriously.  If you really believe that everyone should have an equal voice, you don’t try to shut down supporters of a political movement you disapprove of.

Trump, like Charles Jacobs at February’s anti-Syrian-refugee event, aims to provoke protesters further.  And unlike Charles Jacobs, he has proven able to use the media to gain more supporters as a result of increased protests against him.  In Weimar Germany, the Nazis exploited protests against them in this way — the angrier and more aggressive the anti-Nazi protests were, the more the Nazis exploited them.  I don’t think Trump is as bad as the Nazis, but he is still bad enough that it would be deadly to let him exploit protests like that.  The increasing percentage of votes for Trump, after well-publicized protests against him, shows that some people are now supporting Trump who didn’t have him as their first choice before.

Part of Trump’s skill is that he thrives on provoking clashes within the 99%.  He is able to do this both to his supporters and to his opponents.  One example of that is how it feels satisfying, righteous and powerful to shut down a Trump rally.  Those are the kind of feelings people always have while suppressing activities and communication that they don’t like.  The emotions are the same no matter whether the people doing the suppressing are left-wing, right-wing, or anything else.  The message communicated is not just the “We think you’re wrong” message that some protests send — it sends the sharper message that “Even if your point of view could somehow be considered legitimate, that wouldn’t matter anyway because we’re more powerful and we’ve decided to shut you down.”  I suppose Trump supporters may be capable of shutting down their opponents’ events while feeling the same satisfying sense of righteousness and powerfulness that the Chicago protesters felt.

But the satisfying feeling of shutting down a Trump rally tends to be somewhat delusional.  One blogger, noticing the increasingly rash actions that Trump protesters have gotten into, predicted that “Someone will die”.  I hope that doesn’t happen, but we’ve already seen multiple people doing things like fruitlessly trying to rush the stage at Trump rallies, and it wouldn’t be surprising if someone got killed.  What this looks like to me is emotion-driven action — action that’s aimed at feeling powerful rather than carefully achieving a constructive result.  I don’t think I would be doing any favors to my fellow opponents of Trump, including those who face discrimination and oppression, if I encouraged them to act in this emotion-driven way.  I’m trying to be honest about what I think will work best, and after that I want people to make their own decisions.

Progressives, and those who want to change the system, especially need to protect the standard that no group should have its assemblies and communications shut down, and that everyone should be able to be equally represented with their views even when others think those views are misguided.  The more we can build up that standard — preventing our side from shutting down opponents’ events and preventing others from shutting down ours — the stronger we are in the long term.  We need the right to assemble in order for the good ideas we have to grow.  Just as we don’t want dozens or thousands of Trump supporters shutting down our events, we shouldn’t try to shut down theirs.

It’s easy to feel worried about a Trump presidency.  People at every period of history have been worried about a new leader taking over: if this man or this woman becomes leader, it will be THE END, or it will be the FINAL SHOWDOWN.  But in reality, things tend not to be so apocalyptic as history develops.  We’ve had bad presidents before, and survived them.  I think we’d be better off if Trump was not elected, but the idea of preventing a Trump presidency by direct action is so implausible and counterproductive that I can’t believe it’s the right the way to go.  I’d rather devote effort to surviving a Trump or Hillary presidency and coming out of it with our rights strengthened.  And for that, I think it’s necessary to remain open to those who are currently misguided enough to be Trump supporters, which includes listening to them.  I expect if we listen, a lot of Trump supporters would have good things to say.  We may want them to learn from us, but people rarely learn from you unless you’re willing to learn from them.

I want to emphasize one of the main justifications for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  People who feel righteous in trying to shut down their opponents’ assemblies and communications are always sure that they’re justified in doing that, because they think their own views are right.  But history shows that those who think all their own views are right are always wrong.  If you look at even the best people who lived 100, or 200, or 300 years ago, they all had some ideas which we would now recognize as wrong.  In the same way, the things that we progressives believe now will include some things that, in future, will be seen to be wrong.  That means that we can’t afford to suppress views we disagree with, and we can’t get used to things like shutting down Trump rallies.  We have to be able to learn when we’re wrong, and that means letting those who disagree with us meet, speak, and participate fully in political processes.  Sometimes we may go to protest at events of people we disagree with, and often that’s the right thing to do.  But shutting down a campaign rally by Trump’s supporters is the wrong place to do that — it just fruitlessly sends a message of trying to suppress the rights that other ordinary people have to support their own views.

I would emphasize, instead, that human dignity includes the right of all humans to make their own choices and to make efforts to further their views. Respect for human dignity requires respecting people’s right to do that even when they’re misguided, like Trump supporters are.  The real alternative to the kind of conflict within the 99% that Trump likes to stoke is for us to respect Trump supporters’ right to have and support their own views, and for us to make a convincing case — as we’re fully capable of doing — to show that Trump’s program is wrong, while not completely shutting our ears to any good points that various Trump supporters may have.    One of the most insidious ways in which Trump distorts reality is by making many progressives feel that they need to start attacking fellow members of the 99% instead of talking constructively and making new alliances.

The attempt to shut down the Chicago Trump rally turned out to be basically about information suppression. It suppressed a prominent attempt at communication by one group, but wasn’t anywhere near as powerful in persuading new people that the progressive viewpoint is right.  So it was more about suppressing information than bringing out new and more persuasive information.  If political action in our society takes that kind of turn, we lose.  There are plenty of forces in our society that want to suppress information, that want to be able to exert power to keep various sorts of groups from organizing and meeting.  It’s definitely a possibility that our society, in future, will see much more suppression of information and shutting down of meetings.  I don’t think that’s a good future at all.  We have to keep information open and leave people free to meet and hold events.  A society where it’s more easy to stop people from meeting or from communicating ideas that someone judges unacceptable would be an ignorant, unjust, irrational society, full of cover-ups and oppression.  Sometimes the tactics we choose end up stoking the strengths of our opponents.  Again, I recognize that people are free to make their own choices on how to respond to the Trump rally.  But I think trying to shut it down is counterproductive, and I’m glad the debate on this continues.

The Providence Journal picked up the story, quoting Rep Joe Trillo, RI Chair of Trump’s campaign as saying, “local college students were planning to protest if Trump came to Rhode Island.” Trillo said the cost of added security for the event “may not be worth it.”

Rhode Island has a solid history of chasing loud mouthed racists out of our state. In 2013 our state made national headlines when former New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly, famous for his racist “stop-and-frisk” methods of policing was prevented from speaking at a Brown University event by students.

More recently former US Representative Pete Hoekstra found his anti-refugee message particularly unwelcome in our state when students, clergy and community members countered his message of fear with one of hope and acceptance.

Both events brought commentariat responses similar to Governor Raimondo’s above: Activists should show restraint and civility; shouting down those with opinions you disagree with is counter-productive.

But Trump’s magnificent cowardice shows that this is simply not the case. Calls for civility from those in power are really calls for silence and acquiescence. When a speaker full of money, privilege and power comes to our state to tell us that immigrants are evil, women are second class citizens, or that people of color deserve the brutality police heap upon them, our response cannot polite.

These are not simple political opinions, these are fundamental attacks on our state’s character and values. To politely accept these attacks is cowardice and weakness, and Rhode Islanders are neither.

Here we have a proud tradition of standing up to such attacks.

Trump could never handle Rhode Island. That’s why he ran away.

“We are impressed and inspired by the actions of the students who protested Commissioner Kelly’s speech,” says the letter. “We agree that the university must promote open discourse, but we also believe that peaceful protest and, yes, even disruptive protest, are bedrock expressions of free speech. We urge you not to limit the protections of speech to polite discourse.”

The Ray Kelly protest not only divided the Brown community, but also the progressive left in Rhode Island. For example, Bob Walsh head of the state’s most influential teachers’ union castigated the protest on Facebook calling it an ineffective tactic, while Aaron Regunberg, head of the state’s most influential student union, defended the direct action saying such a tactic was the only way to get the community’s attention.

Andrew Tillit-Saks wrote this compelling op/ed about the reaction to the protest.

Here’s the letter the alumni group sent to their school:

Dear President Paxson and Professor Anthony Bogues:

We, the undersigned alumni of Brown University, write to you to express our serious concern about the manner in which the University is addressing the events surrounding New York Police Department (“NYPD”) Commissioner Ray Kelly’s speech. We have reviewed the video footage of the event, as well as ensuing news coverage, and we believe that the students who protested Commissioner Kelly – both inside of and outside of the event – behaved admirably in denouncing Commissioner Kelly’s actions and in calling out injustice.

Brown University has a long and proud history of student protests. During the Vietnam War, students walked out on a lecture by General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while others protested by shouting at General Wheeler. When the University invited Henry Kissinger to speak during Commencement in 1969 and awarded him an honorary degree, students stood up during Kissinger’s speech and turned their backs on him. In 1981, students picketed a speech by William Casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency; during Casey’s lecture, numerous students stood up and disrupted Casey’s speech by reciting Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. In these and countless other moments, Brown students have used peaceful protest and direct action to challenge injustice. We are proud to be a part of an institution that has such a strong and inspiring history of student protest.

In President Paxson’s November 6, 2013 letter to the Brown community, she wrote: “Brown’s core value of promoting the free and open exchange of ideas is bedrock to our capacity to fulfill our mission as a university. This value applies not only when ideas are agreeable and aligned with our own. Protecting the right to free expression and promoting open discourse is even more essential when ideas are divergent, abhorrent or even hurtful.”

We agree that the university must promote open discourse, but we also believe that peaceful protest and, yes, even disruptive protest, are bedrock expressions of free speech. We urge you not to limit the protections of speech to polite discourse. Rather, we urge Professor Bogues, as well as the other members of the disciplinary committee that has been convened, to understand that the freedom of expression encompasses a much broader range of speech: heated discussion, chants and protests, intemperate remarks, and speech that makes many of us uncomfortable.

Protecting the freedom of expression is a messy endeavor, but we hope that you and the disciplinary committee do not undermine the role of protest and direct action in Brown’s intellectual community.

We are impressed and inspired by the actions of the students who protested Commissioner Kelly’s speech. The Taubman Center had invited Kelly to deliver the Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture. We note that, in inviting Kelly to give a named lecture at a preeminent university, the Taubman Center lent Kelly legitimacy, prestige, and the opportunity to burnish his troubled public image. Kelly presided over countless violations of civil rights during his tenure as NYPD Commissioner – including the stop-and-frisk program, the unlawful detention of protestors at the 2004 Republican National Convention, the surveillance of mosques and Muslim citizens, among others.

We support the students’ actions and we hope that the Committee will not discipline them for their use of peaceful protest to challenge injustice. Instead, we urge you to support students who take a stand against institutional racism and structural violence.

Sincerely,

Cristina Gallo ‘02
Molly Thomas-Jensen ‘02
Sharif Corinaldi ‘00
Keren Wheeler ‘00
Peter Asen ‘04
Martha Oatis ‘03
Damali Campbell ‘01
Annabelle Heckler ‘08
Amber Knighten ‘02
Seth Leibson ‘05
Sara Nolan ‘01
Riana Good ‘03
Abena Asare ‘02
Melissa Sontag Broudo ‘01.5
Kaizar Campwala ‘02
Anne Lessy ‘13
Rocket Caleshu ‘06
Ida Moen Johnson ‘05
Sam Musher ‘01
Molly Geidel ‘03
Rebecca Rast ‘13.5
Martha Patten ‘02
Alexa Engelman ‘03.5
Alisa Gallo ‘93
Karen Pittelman ‘97
Marisa Hernández-Stern ‘05
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández ‘02
Maria Walker ‘02
Matthew Palevsky ‘07
Emma Clippinger ‘09
Ariel Werner ‘09
Rachel Judge ‘07
Robert Smith III ‘09
Nicholas Chung ‘09
Sheila Thomas ‘70
Chloe Holzman ‘02
Bruktaweit Addis ‘11
Janet Santos ‘02, ‘07 M.A.
Nicholas Werle ‘10
Jonathan Allmaier ‘02
Michael Enriquez ‘11
Darshan Patel ‘09
Caroline Young ‘05.5
Alison Klayman ‘06
Amy Joyce ‘01.5
Alex Werth ‘09

Certainly, the conservatives have a lot to lose in capitulating to the demands of groups like the Providence Student Union (PSU) or the organizers of the Kelly protest. Those with opposing ideas of how society ought to be must confront each other. The more dismal component of these debates and contests however, are those allegedly “progressive” voices, who, from the sidelines of any struggle, use their privileged access to the media to denounce the  methods or tactics of organizers. It’s important that this debate between these progressives (and so-called “civil rights leaders”) be settled in favor of an analysis that values justice over civility, promotes the liberation of oppressed people rather than defending the “rights” of oppressors.

So much of the criticism, and in some cases, outright dismissal, of the Providence Student Union (PSU) is focused on their tactics. Caricatured as a “sideshow” and otherwise cheap political theater, the protests and actions of the group seem to be the only thing up for debate in the minds of conservatives and professed “progressives” alike. PSU’s demands to rescind the NECAP standardized test graduation requirement, along with the largely unarticulated contention their work raises – who should decide how and what Providence students learn – don’t seem worthy of consideration.  Perhaps the reason we – so conveniently, it seems, for the arguments of the pundits criticizing the PSU – don’t get anywhere with so-called “education reform” is because no one with formal decision-making power actually wants to change the direction we’re heading. More testing, evaluations designed to undermine teachers’ unions, and privatization of everything, from entire schools to busing. The conclusion one is bound to draw from the focus on superficial aspects of the situation – “how” the PSU goes about making its point- is that whomever is pandering this kind of analysis must have some stake in the status quo. No argument over the PSU’s “tactics” will result in change, especially when the context in which the students struggle to find a voice is almost entirely ignored.

Many critics of the PSU would have us believe that the group’s alleged “sideshow” tactics are unnecessary, some going so far as to say they’re just looking for publicity, not even trying to address a social issue. Yet no one seems capable of articulating how these students might otherwise voice their position in regards to NECAP or any other policy of their schools for that matter. Without a proposed alternative, one is forced not only to question what stake these critics might have in keeping things the way they are, but also where the root of their angry response to the Unions “tactics” truly lies. I would argue this ugly root is actually shaped by bigotry based on age, race, and class.

Coupled with a general fear of change (along with the power and paychecks involved) there is a deep undercurrent of hackneyed prejudice to the majority of the criticisms of the PSU. One could imagine, based on her crude comments, that Board of Education chair Mancuso doesn’t believe any 16 year old should have a say in her own education. I suppose she’d rather decide for students, in private meetings, what and how they will learn (and subsequently, how they’ll be valued as workers and adults). In Mancuso’s myopic, white-washed world, perhaps this is enough to try and wrap her mind around. But, because the PSU is based in Providence, because its members are mostly African-American, Latino, South East Asian, because many come from immigrant families, there is a lot more than the chair’s distaste for kids at stake. Though banal arguments about “tactics” obscure (intentionally in most cases), the fact that racism and class privilege are undeniably present in this situation, anyone savvy enough to understand the history and political-economy of public education in this country should not be duped.

Context matters. It matters in any debate over the Union’s demands, and it matters in one-dimensional diatribes about “tactics.” The real questions we ought to be asking ourselves are: should the students of the PSU (and students in general) have a say in how and what they learn? Who and why might someone argue that they shouldn’t? Why would the PSU employ the “tactics” they have? What other options were and are available to them? These questions, unlike the ones being posed in the majority of commentary, might get us closer to the issues underlying the work of the PSU and the roots of the arguments against them.

Based upon the response from policy-makers, school administrators, conservative and progressive commentators, it would seem that no one criticizing the PSU actually believes students (or perhaps these students) should have a voice in their own education. One of the fundamental beliefs that the PSU’s protests challenge is that administrators, far-removed policy hacks, and, increasingly, profit-seeking education corporations and their consultants, ought to decide how and what students learn.

By organizing – a concept it appears few still understand – the students of the Union are part of a long, dynamic history of how change happens in this country. One of the most prominent examples, the gains of which many PSU critics implicitly or even explicitly in some cases, work to roll back, is the Civil Rights Movement. The foundation of that widespread movement for racial justice was organizing, not the idolatry of Martin Luther King – which many of the Union’s “progressive” critics stake their reputations upon. That foundation was laid by the localized, person-to-person work being done, largely uncelebrated, by Black women in the South. Organizing, against the Jim Crow of the mid-20^th century American South, or the current Jim Crow system of mass incarceration, police terror, and yes, a deeply racist education system, means opening the moral, political, and physical space for the oppressed to challenge the system of white supremacy and class domination that day-to-day largely tramples on unhindered.

The direction, militancy, and horizons of the Civil Rights Movement came from those without recognized political power, whose dreams of a different life, fueled by their daily experience of white supremacy, made them uncompromising in their struggle for justice and perhaps even revolution. These “common” visionaries, often pushed the limitations of their alleged leaders, driving the movement on to it’s next important strides towards a racially just society. Those who would seek to denounce the students of the PSU, and thus make crucial decisions for them, rather than with them, would do well to take lessons from history. Again, where do these detractor’s ideas about who should run the public education system derive from? From the brutal, white supremacist and capitalist status-quo. They aren’t doing themselves, or any of us for that matter, any favors by seeking to suppress the liberating energies of the Union’s student organizers. They are, as usual, simply lining their own, as well as the usual suspects, never-ending pockets. All in the name of “progressivism,” or even, “civil rights!”

It should be no surprise that the same antagonists who have been moralizing the PSU’s tactics would apply their reactionary logic to the recent protest of New York City police commissioner Ray Kelly. In the alleged defense of free speech, self-proclaimed civil rights leaders (along with, thanks to the Providence Journal, conservative think-tanks) have admonished the student and community organizers who prevented Kelly from speaking at Brown University. That Kelly was heckled off the stage is being called an “uncivil” disruption of his right to speak and the audience’s right to hear him. These detractors claim that the protestor’s would have been better off engaging in “civil discourse,” held up as the backbone of any progressive change.

Two related points need to be made about Kelly’s “rights,” as well as this vague and much-touted concept, civil discourse. Firstly, since when did rights have nothing to do with power? What tradition of civil rights are these alleged spokespeople upholding? Kelly, wielding his control over the policies and practices of the entire New York City police department, has established a system of race-based oppression, intended to generate fear in the people of color of New York. This is the institutionalized, highly-resourced, and undemocratic (he was appointed, no?) power Kelly holds. In this position, he has had ample opportunity, not only to voice his opinion, but to actually put his ideas into practice!

How does Kelly’s power, and subsequently, despite what many commentators would like us to believe, the breadth of his rights, compare to that of the organizers in the crowd? The organizers had no institutional backing whatsoever, except for those small, mainly volunteer-run institutions they had built for themselves. It should be easy enough to see through the straw man about Brown’s “liberal” professors and “culture.” The self-proclaimed “liberals” being touted as the scourge of conservatism on campus are the ones deriding the protestors! It’s certainly not a liberal conspiracy to toss out someone like Kelly. I imagine that if those “unruly” protestors and their ideas were really running things at Brown, we wouldn’t have seen Ray Kelly on campus at all, let alone for a huge honorarium and in a celebratory fashion.

Moreover, these organizers and protestors were, in the majority, people of color – the targets of policies like Ray Kelly’s (which, by the way, have been the norm in Providence for years, the Providence PD simply does not have a nationally recognized, formal policy of racial profiling. They prefer to deny that profiling exists.) Whatever limited power these organizers have, Kelly’s policies are designed to undermine, using near-constant threat of harassment, violence, and incarceration. Though indignant commentators would surely gasp, it’s clear to these organizers (and to those willing to accept the actual history of this country) that Ray Kelly and his policies are buttressed by hundreds of years of colonization, chattel slavery, and systemic racism, while the protestors instead struggle to overcome these bulwarks of American society.

Are we to believe that, given this glaring imbalance of power, Kelly and the protestors would have been on a level playing field had they simply engaged in civil discourse? Asked polite, but “tough” questions at the end of the man’s speech? Wrote patient and explanatory articles in the Brown Daily Herald? What incentive then would there be for Kelly’s policies of stop-and-frisk to be put to an end, either by Kelly himself (presumably after hearing the protestors impassioned, reasoned arguments) or by public opinion (which might, heaven-forbid, empower people in New York City to resist stop-and-frisk…oh wait, that’s already happening!). How easy it is to moralize in a vacuum! How simple-minded to presume, against undeniable evidence, that there is no imbalance of power mediating our rights. Again, like arguments against the tactics of the Providence Student Union, one must ask: is this innocent ignorance, or are those making these claims protecting something, intentionally obscuring reality, admonishing those who rupture the everyday through protest, to suit their own comforts, “rights,” and privileges?

It’s a massive betrayal on the part of anyone claiming to uphold the banner of civil rights to decry protestors (mostly protestors of color!) fighting the representative of a racist police policy, without even a nod to the fact that racism or massive disparities of power and influence exist in our society. Not content to simply obfuscate the reality of race and class power, some have gone further, infantilizing people’s reaction over an “emotional issue” as a substitute for any real analysis of the situation. Surely New York’s stop-and-frisk policy and the long history of racialized terror from which it springs are worthy of more than a plaintive wail about how they must make people feel!

Perhaps this is related to the bastion of liberal problem-solving, civil discourse, which has been tossed about not only as the reason to disdain the protest of Kelly, but as an inviolable pillar of our “tolerant” society. The alleged leaders called upon to comment on the protest are, rather than championing the rights of those terrorized, locked up, and brutalized by Kelly’s policies, defending their favorite straw man: civil discourse. They would have us believe that impatient and crude activists are always assaulting this discourse and preventing real, painless change from occurring. Kelly’s speech sheds light on what this “discourse” ultimately amounts to. The argument goes that the protestors, rather than “silencing” the commissioner, should have politely heard him out, then posed their challenging, yet civil, questions during the established Q & A. The result would have been a genteel and unremarkable event. And those local policy-makers and police, who only want to fight crime more effectively, would have heard their racist views and practices reaffirmed by an exalted cop, maybe steeling them to push “proactive” policing further in Providence. The Brown undergads on the verge of tears for the display of free-speech bashing would not have had to be so traumatized!

Yet, what were the protestors after? A statement. A statement against clearly racist policies. From the initial request to cancel the lecture (and spend the honorarium somewhere more appropriate), student organizers sought a disavowal of Kelly and the type of world he represents – a world that is anything but civil. If the protest made you uncomfortable, made you fret over rights, perhaps you might imagine (if you haven’t already experienced it like so many others) a stop-and-frisk. Or, consider not just an isolated incident, a one-off of humiliation, terror, and potentially life-changing consequences, but a generalized, daily routine of surveillance and random violence – the explicit goal of Kelly’s policies. One would hope that champions of civil rights would view the depravity of institutional racism as more discomforting than the heckling of a university’s honored guest. US racism was, after all, built within the genteel, civilized society of the plantation South. Not exactly a concept that we ought to be touting.

Between the Providence Student Union’s confrontation over the future of the education system and the uncivil discourse of protesting Ray Kelly, it’s clear that comfortable, establishment liberals, like their forbears, simply will not choose sides, despite an increasingly clear war over the direction of our society. It’s moments like these that expose liberalism’s inadequacies of vision and analysis. How can you participate in the struggle for justice if you become squeamish over challenging the speech of the overseer of a racist police system? How can you envision a new society if your inviolable method of change is limited to civil discourse? Who has access to this realm of discourse? Apparently Ray Kelly was welcome, while the “rude” protestors were not. So those directly impoverished, violated, too often even murdered by the systems you and Kelly quietly debate are to sit on the sidelines, face more incarceration, deprivation, and injustice, until a civil solution is worked out by those worthy of the conference room?

It’s long been time for those shielding themselves from the obvious conflict going on by hiding behind civility to declare a side. For the oppressed may not fit your description of civility. Those on the side of the oppressed might, reasonably, take your actions to mean that you have chosen your side – that of the existing system and its elites. Perhaps, despite the fact that it will not be a civil contest, folks have chosen to fight for a fundamental revolution in society, to fight for their rights to imagine, create, and live to achieve their full human potential. To defend the rights of a man like Kelly against the bold and uncivil action of those his policies oppress is to choose Kelly’s side of history, the losing side.

So, stop trying to build careers by placating those with power and influence, stop demanding civility and start demanding justice, and decide which side you plan to fight with. I for one, will follow the leadership of those bold organizers and protestors who heckled Ray Kelly offstage. I will follow them to victory over racism and capitalism, and I will gladly be uncivil doing it.

The shout down at Brown has led to the creation of the “Committee on the Events of October 29,” said Brown President Christine Paxson today.

The committee will “identify issues that may have contributed to the disruption” and “address the broader issues of campus climate, free expression, and dialogue across difference,” she wrote.

Paxson authored a critical letter on the night of the incident. In this one she writes, “Making an exception to the principle of open expression jeopardizes the right of every person on this campus to speak freely and engage in open discussion. We must develop and adhere to norms of behavior that recognize the value of protest and acknowledge the imperative of the free exchange of ideas within a university.”

Conversely, Martha Yager of the the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that promotes “peace with justice … through active nonviolence” wrote an impassioned defense of the activists who shouted down Ray Kelly last week in today’s print edition of the Providence Journal (online version here).

“The students and members of the Providence community refused to be devalued. They refused to accept business as usual,” she wrote. “That act of refusal has forced conversation within Brown, and indeed in the larger community, that has the potential of being life changing and profoundly educational for the community.”

Andrew Tillett-Saks writes that social change only happens when civil discourse and civil disobedience work in tandem.

“The implication that masterful debate is the engine of social progress could not be more historically unfounded,” he writes in this post. “The free flow of ideas and dialogue, by itself, has rarely been enough to generate social progress. It is not that ideas entirely lack social power, but they have never been sufficient in winning concessions from those in power to the oppressed. The eight-hour workday is not a product of an incisive question-and-answer session with American robber barons.”

In the wake of the Brown University shout-down of Ray Kelly, champion of the NYPD’s racist stop-and-frisk policy and racial profiling in general, the debate has resurfaced. Rather than talking past the anti-protestors’ arguments, they need to be addressed directly. The prototypical argument in denouncing the protestors is not a defense of Ray Kelly’s racism. It is twofold: First, that a free-flowing discourse on the matter will allow all viewpoints to be weighed and justice to inevitably emerge victorious on its merits. Second, that stopping a bigot from speaking in the name of freedom is self-defeating as it devolves our democratic society into tyranny.

The twofold argument against the protestors stems from two central myths of neoliberalism.

The argument for free discourse as the enlightened path to justice ignores that direct action protest is primarily responsible for most of the achievements we would consider ‘progress’ historically (think civil rights, workers’ rights, suffrage, etc.), not the free exchange of ideas. The claim that silencing speech in the name of freedom is self-defeating indulges in the myth of the pre-existence of a free society in which freedom of speech must be preciously safeguarded, while ignoring the woeful shortcomings of freedom of speech in our society which must be addressed before there is anything worth protecting.

Critics of the protest repeatedly denounced direct action in favor of ideological debate as the path to social justice. “It would have been more effective to take part in a discussion rather than flat out refuse to have him speak,” declared one horrified student to the Brown Daily Herald. Similarly, Brown University President Christina Paxson labeled the protest a detrimental “affront to democratic civil society,” and instead advocated “intellectual rigor, careful analysis, and…respectful dialogue and discussion.”

Yet the implication that masterful debate is the engine of social progress could not be more historically unfounded. Only in the fairy tale histories of those interested in discouraging social resistance does ‘respectful dialogue’ play a decisive role in struggles against injustice.

The eight-hour workday is not a product of an incisive question-and-answer session with American robber barons. Rather, hundreds of thousands of workers conducted general strikes during the nineteenth century, marched in the face of military gunfire at Haymarket Square in 1886, and occupied scores of factories in the 1930’s before the eight-hour work day became American law.

Jim Crow was not defeated with the moral suasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches. Rather, hundreds of thousands marched on Washington, suffered through imprisonment by racist Southern law enforcement, and repeatedly staged disruptive protests to win basic civil rights.

On a more international scale, Colonialism, that somehow-oft-forgotten tyranny that plagued most of the globe for centuries, did not cease thanks to open academic dialogue. Bloody resistance, from Algeria to Vietnam to Panama to Cuba to Egypt to the Philippines to Cameroon and to many other countries, was the necessary tool that unlocked colonial shackles.

Different specific tactics have worked in different contexts, but one aspect remains constant: The free flow of ideas and dialogue, by itself, has rarely been enough to generate social progress. It is not that ideas entirely lack social power, but they have never been sufficient in winning concessions from those in power to the oppressed. Herein lies neoliberal myth number one—that a liberal free-market society will inexorably and inherently march towards greater freedom. To the contrary, direct action has always proved necessary.

Yet there are many critics of the protestors who do not claim Ray Kelly’s policies can be defeated with sharp debate. Instead, they argue that any protest in the name of freedom which blocks the speech of another is self-defeating, causing more damage to a free society by ‘silencing’ another than any potential positive effect of the protest. The protestors, the argument goes, tack society back to totalitarian days of censorship rather than forward to greater freedom. The protestors, however well intentioned, have pedantically thwarted our cherished liberal democracy by imposing their will on others.

The premise of this argument is neoliberal myth number two—that we live in a society with ‘freedom of speech’ so great it must be protected at all costs. This premise stems from an extremely limited conception of ‘freedom of speech.’ Free speech should not be considered the mere ability to speak freely and inconsequentially in a vacuum, but rather the ability to have one’s voice heard equally. Due to the nature of private media and campaign finance in American society, this ability is woefully lopsided as political and economic barriers abound. Those with money easily have their voices heard through media and politics, those without have no such freedom. There is a certain irony (and garish privilege) of upper-class Ivy Leaguers proclaiming the sanctity of a freedom of speech so contingent upon wealth and political power.

There is an even greater irony that the fight for true freedom of speech, if history is any indicator, must entail more direct action against defenders of the status quo such as Ray Kelly. To denounce such action out of indulgence in the neoliberal myth of a sacrosanct, already existing, freedom of speech is to condemn the millions in this country with no meaningful voice to eternal silence.

Every few years, an advocate of oppression is shouted down. Every few years, the protestors are denounced. They are asked to trust open, ‘civil’ dialogue to stop oppression, despite a historical record of struggle and progress that speaks overwhelmingly to the contrary. They are asked to restrain their protest for freedom so to protect American freedom of speech, despite the undeniable fact that our private media and post-Citizens United political system hear only dollars, not the voices of the masses. Some will claim that both sides have the same goal, freedom, but merely differ on tactics. Yet the historical record is too clear and the growing dysfunctions in our democracy too gross to take any such claims as sincere. In a few years, when protestors shout down another oppressive conservative, we will be forced to lucidly choose which side we are on: The oppressors or the protestors. The status quo or progress.

But I don’t believe it is the only thing worth noting about the incident.

Another is there is a fairly large, very ad hoc and relatively politically-powerless coalition of activists in Rhode Island that are extremely fed up with institutionalized racism, or what has been called the new Jim Crow. Public policies like the war on drugs, proactive policing, high stakes testing and voter ID that on their face address social problems and in the process disproportionately target poor and minority populations.

I had the great but thankless honor of defending the agitators/organizers who shouted down Ray Kelly this week on NBC10 News Conference.

Watch the online-only Wingmen segment here, in which me, Bill Rappleye and my made-for-TV-arch nemesis Justin Katz debate the efficacy of such political tactics:

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

The ad hoc coalition of college and urban activists who prevented Ray “Stop and Frisk” Kelly from speaking at Brown University on Tuesday have been largely denounced across the political spectrum today. Dan Yorke of WPRO even went so far as to suggest that they be retroactively arrested!

But one person who isn’t (besides Steve Ahlquist and surely Bruce Reilly, who previewed the protest on RI Future) is Fred Ordonez, executive director of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, a Providence group that works with the most disenfranchised members of the community.

Here’s what he said to me in an email:

CONGRATULATIONS! to the Brown students and community members who demonstrated what people power looks like to lost institutions like Brown University, the NYPD and Rhode Island’s policing community. The students showed courage and local community people who are the affected by oppressive police tactics are just plain fed up. Even if it makes some uncomfortable, know that oppressed peoples will continue to resist in any which way they can.

Much of the conversation now seems to be focused on this man’s rights and the rights of those who wanted to participate in legitimizing (though this LECTURE) the oppression his policies cause. It’s no surprise these institutions will continue to try and marginalize the will of the people who were outraged by his invitation, who by no coincidence are mostly people of color.

Free speech and the First Amendment that is supposed to protect it are about public spaces – street corners, parks and the like. For more info, see the recent federal court decision that busted Providence police for violating it, Reilly v Providence. Brown, as a private institution, has never been about free speech. Like most private institutions, they pick and choose very carefully who gets the mic, even more so when they pay a speaker $10,000 to wield that mic as they did in the case of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. Kelly doesn’t have “right” to speak at Brown any more than I have a “right” to be published in HuffPo.

Brown does have a responsibility to be thoughtful and constructive in how it chooses to hire out its forum, and in this regard the university utterly failed its students, the Providence community, and the people of New York who have been terrorized by Ray Kelly’s policies and practices over the past eleven years. Students, some of whom have been victimized by police practices similar to the NYPD’s racial profiling, tried valiantly to engage Marion Orr, director of Brown’s Taubman Center, in constructive alternatives to this travesty. But they were rebuffed. Community members who have battled the racial profiling rampant among Providence police were insulted and angered that instead of showing an interest in the civil rights struggles of the surrounding community, Brown saw fit to surround Kelly with local police officials. The University is apparently ignorant of (or unconcerned by?) the danger faced by our local sons, daughters, neighbors and selves of legitimizing the unconstitutional and racist practices of the NYPD.

Blatantly violating the constitution over an extended period of time, despite repeated warnings of the court, doesn’t give you a right to speak anywhere you want. If the University wants students to sit with their hands folded and mouths shut while Ray Kelly promotes policing strategies that are clear violations of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, perhaps they should just dump massive amounts of Xanax in their drinking water supply, and stop any pretense of telling students to think critically. And even better, they could just acknowledge to the surrounding community that our struggles are merely an inconvenience they would prefer to ignore. If it’s more important to the University to spend a lot of money providing a forum for a hatemonger, than to respect people from Providence to New York and beyond who have suffered the disgrace and humiliation of unconstitutional stops and racial profiling than maybe they need to just be honest and simply embrace the institution’s roots in the slave trade.

In Struggle and Resistance

Rod Carri, commenting on ProJo.com, said,

These spoiled brats would be the first to holler about their First Amendment rights being violated. Yet, they feel they can deny Ray Kelly his right to free speech. So typical of hypocritical libs.

Even some of those who agree with the main point of the protesters, that the policies Commissioner Kelly champions are unconstitutional violations of human rights, have decried the protesters. Words like “uncouth” and “intolerant” are being bandied about with no sense of irony, given the years of violations suffered by the mostly minority victims of Kelly’s policies. There are calls for protesters to adopt the mythic patient suffering of MLK and Gandhi, who apparently never interrupted anyone to make their points.

First off, the idea that the protests somehow interfered with Kelly’s “free speech” rights is absurd. The First Amendment applies only to actions on the part of the government to silence speech. This was an action of people exercising their own free speech rights. Kelly’s views are easily and readily available; he has stood before a microphone more often than not during any given waking hour.

The views of Kelly’s opponents, however, are less likely to be given national press and airtime. By being uncouth and civilly disobedient, Kelly’s opponents got their message out: We don’t tolerate racism in Rhode Island.

Had the protesters been polite and well-mannered, the story would have been buried deep inside the ProJo, under the headline, “Commissioner Kelly defends stop-and-frisk at Brown.”

Secondly, India wasn’t freed because Gandhi waited for the Q&A period at the end of a British diplomat’s talk to make his points, and MLK did not politely request an end to centuries of racism. These great civil rights leaders demanded their rights.

Both MLK and Gandhi spent time in prison for upsetting the status quo, doing things those in power thought were jailable offenses at worst and “uncouth” at best. Pinning our cultural opponents in socially constructed systems and then criticizing them for thinking and acting outside the box is a classic way of giving the appearance of an open society while simultaneously denying the right to dissent.

“A grim-faced Kelly left the List Arts Center via a side door after university officials gave up their attempts to bring order to the auditorium and closed the program 27 minutes after its scheduled start,” reports the Providence Journal. Kelly is infamous for his stop-and-frisk policy of searching random citizens without cause. A judge has ruled the tactic, known also as “proactive policing,” is unconstitutional.

When Kelly began speaking last night, civil rights activists stood up and and drowned out his message with their own. “We want to make this community safer, yet you are making an entire population feel unsafe to believe in our hopes,” one young man said. “Our rights are violated all the time and yet you want us to respect your rights?” said another.

Brown was not happy it had to cancel the event. University President Christine Paxson said in a quickly-released letter: “This is a sad day for the Brown community. I appreciate that some members of our community objected to the views of our invited speaker. However, our University is – above all else – about the free exchange of ideas. Nothing is more antithetical to that value than preventing someone from speaking and other members of the community from hearing that speech and challenging it vigorously in a robust yet civil manner.”

The Brown Daily Herald had excellent coverage as the events unfolded. Read the student newspaper’s coverage here. And check out their great live tweets from the event, such as this one:

VP Marisa Quinn: “I have never seen in my 15 yrs at Brown the inability to have a dialogue.” Quinn immediately interrupted by audience.

— Brown Daily Herald (@the_herald) October 29, 2013

At the end of this great video, a student offers a reply to Quinn.

WPRO’s Steve Klamkin shared this video: