Civil disobedience
We appreciate the feedback regarding our protest during the rally for Anthony Brown at Ritchie Coliseum on Oct. 30. However, we find much of what Mitchell Wilson said in his guest column, “There’s a right way to hold a protest,” to be flawed and misinformed.
To clarify, we are not members of United We Dream, but we are part of PLUMAS (Political Latino/as United for Movement and Action in Society) at this university, and we proudly support United We Dream’s cause and what it stands for. Some of our members participated in the action alongside United We Dream.
We did not mean for our interruptions to put an “unmistakable damper” on anyone’s mood, but we are not writing to apologize. Imagine living with the constant fear that your family and friends will be forced out of their homes, locked up and deported at any moment because of their undocumented status. Imagine coming home from school to find your mother and father were both arrested and deported and not knowing whether you will ever see them again. That is what puts an unmistakable damper on our moods.
The point of our action, as it was executed, was to put Hillary Clinton on the spot so she would take a clear stance on administrative relief for immigrants rather than dance around the question as usual. We were not looking for a middle ground on which to compromise; we were demanding a direct answer.
Nevertheless, Clinton only answered with meaningless references to this state’s DREAM Act and immigration reform, refusing to take a bold stance on executive action once again.
The time for respectability has long passed. Why should we wait patiently and politely as politicians sit idly while our families are torn apart? Civil disobedience does not work around comfort or convenience. Protests do not happen on the sidelines with minimal disturbance.
We were there to make our presence and our struggles known because we have waited far too long. Let us not forget Martin Luther King Jr. was a proponent of peaceful civil disobedience, yet he was subdued with a bullet. Although sit-ins are indeed symbolic of the civil rights movement, more pressing forms of direct action were also crucial to its progress. The Watts Riot of 1965, a race riot that took place in Los Angeles for six days, was a turning point in civil rights history because black people asserted their unwillingness to quietly bear the brunt of systematic oppression any longer. We are not advocating such violence, but we do believe in unrelenting and unapologetic action when our needs are not met.
Our hope is that everyone who attended the rally realized they witnessed something more powerful than a rehearsed campaign of carefully chosen words and appeasing promises. You witnessed the strength of student power, of resilience and unity against insurmountable odds and suffering. You saw how change can be attained in a functional democracy when traditional methods of communication are ignored.
We realize that not everyone will agree with our stance or our approach, but we do hope for a better understanding of our perspective. Methods aside, the right way to hold a protest is to make it aimed, bold and demanding enough to elicit a response. In that respect, we have succeeded.
Astrid Diaz is a junior American studies and anthropology major and member of PLUMAS. She can be reached at adiaz17@terpmail.umd.edu.
