Part 3, Section i
3a. Debunking Negative Connotations of Violence
Just as anyone can participate in nonviolent strategies, the riot is easily accessible: small amounts of violence by a large group of people seems to be most effective. Obviously, it is non-white people that are most at risk of state violence following a riot, but if the program becomes focused on not risking vulnerable populations, the only answer is reform and retreat. Similar to the need for ongoing conflict, there is a need for risk in order to foster a sense of urgency. On the other hand, when there there is a total avoidance of risk, the option of nonviolence becomes condescending: nonviolence becomes a performance rather than an effective strategy.
For nonviolence to mean something, the subject must already be strong but choose nonviolence. By doing so, the subject negates the oppressor’s idea that they are weak and must choose nonviolence because of that weakness, instead displaying nonviolence as a form of self-restraint: the subject is strong enough to be violent but chooses not to. When there is no structural power to wield, adherents of nonviolence and the contemporary “peaceful protest” must hope for their oppressors’ benevolence. This is a strategy that puts these folks at the mercy of the institutions they already know lack mercy and conscience.
As has been iterated before by people such as Jackie Wang and others, the innocent versus non-innocent binary not only serves to uphold anti-Black frameworks, but also convolutes the reality of situations. The rhetoric of guilt in the context of protest situations reaffirms the anti-Black structure of policing, preemptive policing in particular. When protests affirm their alleged innocence and peace, they are in reality whitewashing themselves and attempting to render themselves legible and credible to white civil society’s psyche. In other words, the distinction between peaceful and non-peaceful protests, grounded in anti-blackness, are made for the white supremacist body-politic. The rhetoric of innocence forces protesters to label their actions in accordance to white-supremacist standards.