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Consider: who decides which types of protest and organizations are legitimate? How can we contribute to the movement for racial justice in the way we think is appropriate and effective without turning in those who might disagree? How might powerful institutions benefit from dividing “good” and “bad” protesters?
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By Andrew Lee (he/him)
Last Friday, Shamar Betts received four years in federal prison for “inciting a riot” after George Floyd’s murder. He owes $1.5 million in restitution (News-Gazette). Black Lives Matter protests drew “aggressive federal prosecutions for crimes not usually in the purview of U.S. attorney’s offices.” Prosecutors demanded harsh sentences in an apparent effort to suppress anti-racist protestors who Attorney General Barr characterized as “domestic terrorists” (The Intercept).
While charges began under Trump, “the Justice Department under Biden has continued many of these civil disorder and arson prosecutions.” “We’re not seeing a big change in the Biden administration with regard to the prosecutions of Black Lives Matter activists as compared with the previous administration,” said Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. In the wake of January 6th, Democrats introduced a bill creating “domestic terrorism offices” in the FBI, Justice Department, and Homeland Security. Activists fear that they would eventually be used to target racial justice movements (The Intercept).
Biden promised to sign the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but his administration sought harsh punishments for those arrested protesting the man’s death (NYTimes). How can the government reconcile with movements it represses?
Our piece on COINTELPRO explored how counterinsurgency efforts during the civil rights movement surveilled, imprisoned, and assassinated activists ranging from Muhammad Ali to Dr. Kin. Through COINTELPRO, the FBI worked with Chicago police to assassinate a sleeping Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter Black Panther Party (Huff Post). Had he not been executed at the age of 21, today would be his 73rd birthday. According to the ACLU’s Nusrat Choudhury, “The FBI appears to be engaged in a modern-day version of COINTELPRO” (FAIR).
One side of counterinsurgency is repressing parts of a social movement through disruption and draconian punishments. The other side of counterinsurgency is fostering those parts of a movement easiest to contain. Both serve to divert movements of the most directly affected seeking change of an unjust system.
“Counterinsurgency theory places a heavy emphasis on shaping the social environment,” writes policing scholar Kristian Williams. “Police-led partnerships [sometimes use] progressive nonprofits to channel and control political opposition.” After protests against the murder of Oscar Grant, nonprofits collaborating with the police took the lead in pushing protestors off the street at marches and denouncing not the violence of police but unruly protester behavior (Interface). And while they were setting up Hampton’s assassination, the FBI fostered relationships with “cooperative” Black moderates “as a counterinsurgency measure against the militant Negro community” (FBI, pg. 35).
Last year, “the media played a crucial role pushing narratives about ‘outside agitators.’ From MSNBC host Joy Reid to progressive representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, these mysterious agitators were all of a sudden showing up everywhere that confrontational protests occurred” (Teen Vogue). Some held up Dr. King’s legacy to protect “peaceful protests” from “outside agitators,” though King himself wrote, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea” (University of Texas).
Political elites wish “to be able to present which protest is good or bad” to neutralize protests, said Lilith Sinclair, an Afro-Indigenous nonbinary organizer (OPB). That doesn’t mean we always agree with what everyone at a protest might say or do. It doesn’t mean everyone in the fight for justice is virtuous, that we should all set fire to fast food restaurants, or must applaud when it happens. It doesn’t mean police infiltration isn't a risk or that social movements can’t have good-faith debates about what is and is not appropriate. But when the police and government feel threatened by a movement for change, sowing division is a key tactic. We shouldn’t do that work for them.
If you want to stand in solidarity with racial justice movements, interrogate your instincts about policing which forms of protest are appropriate. If someone breaks a Target window after a police murder, ask yourself if you identify more with the store manager or with a young person of color who believes that this is the only way a racist system will hear them. The most boisterous protests of last year did not, unlike the police, murder anyone in cold blood or lock anyone in cages for decades. If we come together, despite our differences, we can resist counterinsurgency.
Key Takeaways
The Trump and Biden administrations have sought exceptionally harsh punishments against Black Lives Matter protesters.
Some protesters and organizations have taken to denouncing “bad” protesters, not police repression, as the chief problem facing the movement.
Supporting “good protesters” while persecuting “bad protesters” is a counterinsurgency strategy the government uses to disrupt social movements while maintaining its legitimacy and power.
RELATED ISSUES
7/6/2020 | Abolish qualified immunity.
6/30/2020 | Boycott as a form of protest.
6/22/2020 | Talk about our right to protest.
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