Talk about our right to protest.
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Happy Monday!
Thanks for your kind notes in response to the Q&A. Feedback on this email series is overwhelmingly positive, and I don't mind digging into the tough conversations because I know we're all here to learn. This work is uncomfortable because it's counter-cultural – the more we do it, the more we reshape our society into a safer, more equitable place.
Based on the feedback from yesterday, today we're diving into tactics on talking about race with our peers. This time we're going to use resources from leading anti-racism educators and facilitators to address harmful perceptions around protests.
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Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Choose a family member, colleague or friend to have a conversation about the recent protests.
Review (and perhaps share) our Rights to Protest outlined by the ACLU.
GET EDUCATED
The protests aren't going anywhere.
Protests for Black lives have been holding steady across the country for the past three weeks. This weekend, protests and demonstrations were hosted in honor of Juneteenth across the U.S., and protestors gathered in Tulsa for Trump's rally. And as these conversations swell, more protests are sprouting up in smaller cities, bringing the national conversations to small-town life.
And the protests are creating change – most noticeably, In a Monmouth University poll released this week, 76% of Americans — including 71% of white people — called racism and discrimination “a big problem” in the United States, a 26 percentage point increase since 2015. In this article you can also scroll to see a running list of political and corporate level change sparked by the protests unfolding.
But public perception about the protests themselves is still tenuous, especially as they move to smaller, more rural communities. A study from Pew Research Center found that about 62% U.S. adults say some people taking advantage of the situation to engage in criminal behavior has been a major contributing factor in the protests. Generally, our society has had a critical view of protests that were much less present than demonstrators taking over the streets. The protests of Colin Kapernick, for example, have been shamed by individuals and the NFL until recently: a poll found that for the first time and only last week, the majority of Americans support kneeling during the national anthem, and the NFL commissioner only just admitted they were wrong for not listening to players' protests.
We can protect our right to protest, and encourage that the messages are heard, by shifting those public perceptions in our own community. I've compiled a series of resources for tactically having conversations around protests that center the importance of all voices being heard.
“We have an unequal society that benefits the few—the old, the white—over the many: the young, people of color. That is the crux of all these conversations.”
Demographer William Frey in this article for The Atlantic
Tools for holding conversations around the right to protest.
Find your buddy.
Find a person you can call for support as you prepare and host this conversation. As SURJ says: "Who can you scheme and grieve and dream with?"
Increase the level of connection.
For example, if you’re responding to a post on social media, try a direct message, or a text message, or even a phone call. Make it as personal as possible.
Seek conversation, not confrontation.
Start the dialogue with an invitation, ask for consent before diving in, and avoid accusations. Avoid “why” questions because they can make people feel defensive. Instead, try something like “what made you feel that way” or “how did that happen” or “will you tell me more about that”.
Be vulnerable.
Starting from a place of your own ignorance is a powerful way to demonstrate leadership and acknowledge your own growth in moving forward.
Focus on transformative, not transactional conversations.
Similar to the above, guide the conversation so it has space to turn into follow-up conversations for additional growth and understanding.
It's okay to pause and pick up later.
If the conversation reaches a boiling point, you can firmly end and request to pick up later. It might feel tempting to keep pushing, but sometimes that can break connection and leave a relationship difficult to repair.
Ask them what they need.
Guiding the conversation with questions, not statements, gives agency to the other person, and may illuminate where their perceptions are stemming from.
Prepare yourself with concrete examples in response to FAQs:
These protests are going to cause more COVID-19 spikes.
A recent study found "no evidence" that protests across 315 of America's largest cities caused a spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases, because people not protesting were more likely to stay home
All the looting is ruining local businesses.
Stories from businesses that were directly impacted by property destruction or looting, like Indian restaurant Gandhi Mahal in Minneapolis, might help your discussion.
That cop is just a bad apple, and the system will hold them responsible.
You can point to the ongoing history of violence by the police, name that there's recent murders were cops have not found justice, and how the protests themselves are delivering justice for Rayshard Brooks and Breonna Taylor that might not otherwise be found.
Key resources in this compilation include the SURJ Google Doc for talking about protests and this NPR interview with Ijeoma Oluo.
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