Senior government and politics major
I learned a lot of things from my time working in the state General Assembly, but the lesson I learned about democracy is one of the most poignant. Your voice, if submitted through the proper channels in a timely fashion and with modest support, will be heard. If you put it on your private blog or in local coverage, it will also probably be heard. I couldn’t guarantee that it will effect change, but you can always make someone, somewhere consider your point of view if you work within reasonable means.
Knowing this makes physical protests feel outdated. In Baltimore, people left their homes with paper signs and slogans to protest the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Admittedly, every major protest comes with a fleet of live-tweeters, on-the-street streamers and bloggers, not to mention 24/7 cable news coverage to pick up the action. At the end of the day, though, it feels like strapping advanced computer systems to a rake.
Worse yet, the coverage that allows protests in Ferguson, Missouri; New York; and Baltimore to reach a national audience attracts the same demons we try to avoid when we discourage national coverage of mass shooters. Hoping for five seconds of fame holding a tire iron or someone else’s purse, these migrant rioters steal the attention of the country. After all, if it bleeds, it leads, and everyone wants to be famous.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore Police both pointed to outside instigators as the root of the disturbance in the city. The Baltimore Sun did discover that only three of those arrested during Saturday’s protests were from outside this state, but there’s more to being an outsider than being from another area. Arriving at a gathering of those outraged at Gray’s death to break store windows and engage with the police is the definition of an outsider.
In the discourse that follows these protests, we spend too much time trying to legitimize the innocent and shun the violent. But let’s face it: Protesting has changed, and by initiating a protest, the innocent can inadvertently cause violence. Instead of standing outside government buildings physically attempting to get the attention of politicians, protests have become an effort to bring as many news vans to the city as possible. That’s not a bad tactic, as national pressure is now the nuclear warhead of leverage in state and local government, but it brings in enough malicious attention nowadays that protesters might as well have literally dropped a warhead on their city.
That’s not pressure; it’s a final solution. There’s an ultimatum before these protests that is never vocalized: “If you won’t end police brutality, we’ll call so much attention to this issue people will hurt one another to get on TV.”
I can’t ask poor, underprivileged communities to get on Twitter, start a YouTube movement or even email their representatives. I want to ask them to try, and I want people to work out ways they can make a difference besides making themselves into targets. I want journalists to use the same don’t-glorify-shooters philosophy during protests and start talking to people one-on-one instead of racing around Baltimore looking for broken glass.
People don’t know their own strength, but we’ve had at least a decade to adjust to this. If every peaceful protest that reaches national news has an equal and opposite riot, we can find some other way. It’s frustrating sometimes, but your voice can always be heard.
Emma Atlas is a senior government and politics major. She can be reached at eatlastdbk@gmail.com.
