MLK Day Protesters Block Traffic on the Bay Bridge

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Apparently a mans kids being late is more important then black lives! Black lives really are meaningless to Americans. I wish I could be out there protesting as well.

What? So if I was on my way to pick my child up from school and I was an hour late due to the protest, I'd have no right to be frustrated?

Or when I got stopped half way on the bridge, I should just smile and say, "good for them?"

Your analogy or assessment isn't particularly fair.
 
Apparently a mans kids being late is more important then black lives! Black lives really are meaningless to Americans. I wish I could be out there protesting as well.

way to completely simplify the point for your own benefit

your priorities are fucked, mate
 
"These guys should stop protesting people dying, what if someone dies????"

Where did I say stop protesting. I'm not even saying stop protesting things that can inconvenience others. Is it really asking much to ask to not protest in ways that can cause serious issues people that can even include death?
 
I mean, I live in Maine, and we had less black students than even that in my high school(none in elementary), and it's still a day off. I didn't think skipping out on that was even a thing.

We didn't have off in Catholic school growing up.

Also, most preschool/day cares are open.
 
Not all schools have MLK day off, actually. I know my high school didn't. Most likely because we had less than a dozen black students in a 2,400 student body.

so... there was a black requirement to have mlk day off?
 
Being annoyed by having the road block doesn't mean we don't support you cause, that snarky attitude alone is more grating than any protest.

Nobody here is stuck in traffic, we're all on the internet. If you're stuck in traffic, be annoyed, that's your right. But when someone comes into a thread like this and immediately starts worrying about some fictional parent's hypothetical lateness to some imaginary family tragedy, all I can do is roll my eyes. Like, there's a million reasons your kid could die in your absence and you not being able to get to them - you don't propose that the fucking world clear a path for you in every imaginable scenario.
 
don't do illegal shit that makes you look like monsters

pretty simple

i can't believe there's a defense force for this shit, how sad

On this very fine Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will present you with a quote from the man himself:

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Read it, learn it, maybe realize you're the kind of person that MLK is talking about. Use this as an opportunity to resist the urge to go apeshit over this kind of thing, and learn about context, the purpose of protesting, and why today is called MLK day.
 
What do people think protest is?

Now, I believe I speak for all of my fellow Negro citizens when I state that it is evident Martin Luther King Jr. was not a patriot.

Would you like to know why? He cost the city millions! I am certain there was one white man in that photograph who had to take the long and arduous path to his bank teller occupation that day. Imagine the fear he had as he realized his car was soon encircled by...by... by those of the darker persuasion.

Protests, indeed, are not meant to enflame the masses, disrupt the apathetic, cost the city, or create any sort of negative externality.
Nay, a true protest is much as a painting in the Louvre, to be admired from afar but have no long-reaching impact on one's life.
 
On this very fine Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will present you with a quote from the man himself:



Read it, learn it, maybe realize you're the kind of person that MLK is talking about. Use this as an opportunity to resist the urge to go apeshit over this kind of thing, and learn about context, the purpose of protesting, and why today is called MLK day.
The "white moderate MLK quote as way to stifle any criticism and serve as thinly veiled ad hominem" taking a full five pages to appear is the upset of this go-round.

Some criticism will be based in ugliness. Some will be based in logic. Some will be honest. Some will be dishonest. Let's not assume everyone's an asshole from the jump.
 
Roads are important for critical functions for a society. Blocking them is dangerous and can potentially cost human lives.

Police are important for critical functions of society, yet being around them while black, regardless of guilt or innocence, is lopsidedly dangerous and has already cost many human lives.

But a lot of people don't care, so they are trying to make them care. It's frustrating to note that it's still such a major problem but such a large segment of the population doesn't care since they have no risk of being directly affected. On a day in remembrance of racial injustice, no less.
 
Still feel that the BLM movement would make headway is in sports, particularly in college sports. The fact that there was change in Mizzou was the threat of the football team not taking the field. Imagine a bowl game with key players not participating due to lack of minority representation in the the NCAA.
Another was at Ferguson to get more people to register to get better representation in local government. Not sure it was successful or not yet but fingers crossed.

I think you touched on a good point around its marketing and argument representation.

Having some key role models step up and speak up in front of the people would be a great way to get some leverage in the media and their arguments heard. Sports, music, movies, etc. It would be really effective.
 
Now, I believe I speak for all of my fellow Negro citizens when I state that it is evident Martin Luther King Jr. was not a patriot.

Would you like to know why? He cost the city millions! I am certain there was one white man in that photograph who had to take the long and arduous path to his bank teller occupation that day. Imagine the fear he had as he realized his car was soon encircled by...by... by those of the darker persuasion.

Protests, indeed, are not meant to enflame the masses, disrupt the apathetic, cost the city, or create any sort of negative externality.
Nay, a true protest is much as a painting in the Louvre, to be admired from afar but have no long-reaching impact on one's life.

I honestly think that's what people believe protest is and that's what King did during his activist career.
 
Surely a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Groups throughout history have done all sorts of things in the name of good causes.
And the argument of "but people are dying" is a very good cause. But some of us just draw lines at different points. I'm just not a fan of that, really.
 
Oh boy. Good thing they were preaching, STUPID way of doing it.

What were they thinking. This isn't gonna solve anything, just make it more dangerous. What would have happened if something happened and someone got so angry or drunk or was texting and hit them (more like in the beginning since probably after 5 minutes it would be packed up with cars and police).

I know I personally wouldn't have come out of their thinking of police brutality and more how I wish I could punch them.

I'm guessing they didn't understand anything on how MLK planned his march? Or did they not care?
 
The "white moderate MLK quote as way to stifle any criticism and serve as thinly veiled ad hominem" taking five pages to appear is the upset of this go-round.

It's an ad hominem? Do elaborate.

If you're offended by his mention of "white", then mentally remove it from the quote and re-read it to yourself.

I'm not trying to shut down discussion either. I'm trying to address someone's misguided rage. If you disagree with the quote feel free to explain why, don't do drive-by shitposting.
 
I mean, that's how protest works.



The Birmingham campaign literally disrupted an entire city, on purpose.


What do you think happened on Bloody Sunday and the events leading up to it?
X00077_9.JPG.jpeg



Chicago, 1966, MLK marches directly into affluent white neighborhoods to protest the end of slums in the city. He planned the Poor People's Campaign in 1968:




What do people think protest is? I mean, let's be out with it on MLK Day. Do you actually believe what he did was good, or do you just agree with the abstract because you didn't have to live with it?

People only want to think about Dr. King as the dude who made that speech one time, and somehow managed to move civil rights forward without inconveniencing anyone ever.

Instead of the the dude who said this:
"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. "

Crisis. Tension. He calls protesters gadflies, which are known for being annoying.

People laud MLK for being "peaceful", but they forgot "peaceful" isn't the same as "quiet" or "convenient" or "out-of-the-way".
 
Police are important for critical functions of society, yet being around them while black, regardless of guilt or innocence, is lopsidedly dangerous and has already cost many human lives.

But a lot of people don't care, so they are trying to make them care. It's frustrating to note that it's still such a major problem but such a large segment of the population doesn't care since they have no risk of being directly affected. On a day in remembrance of racial injustice, no less.

So that makes it okay? it's one thing to make an impression in ways that stick, even if it inconveniences. It's another thing to risk lives.
 
On this very fine Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will present you with a quote from the man himself:



Read it, learn it, maybe realize you're the kind of person that MLK is talking about. Use this as an opportunity to resist the urge to go apeshit over this kind of thing, and learn about context, the purpose of protesting, and why today is called MLK day.

these actions are unacceptable by any modern standard

W4stg3y.gif
 
I mean, that's how protest works.



The Birmingham campaign literally disrupted an entire city, on purpose.


What do you think happened on Bloody Sunday and the events leading up to it?
X00077_9.JPG.jpeg



Chicago, 1966, MLK marches directly into affluent white neighborhoods to protest the end of slums in the city. He planned the Poor People's Campaign in 1968:




What do people think protest is? I mean, let's be out with it on MLK Day. Do you actually believe what he did was good, or do you just agree with the abstract because you didn't have to live with it?

don't do illegal shit that makes you look like monsters

pretty simple

i can't believe there's a defense force for this shit, how sad

Tesseract's reaction is exactly the ones people had about MLK, Malcolm X, Stokley, and even Rosa Park's protests back in the day.

Till the day most of them died.

And yet, we praise their efforts, and shit on people who are literally redoing those same efforts because it's no longer in retrospect.


Amazing.
 
So that makes it okay? it's one thing to make an impression in ways that stick, even if it inconveniences. It's another thing to risk lives.

That's pretty much how many protests work. Again, disruption of city and private services to draw attention to a cause that is not being addressed.
 
We got a movie about MLK blocking a bridge a year ago, and people still think what's happening now is somehow different and worse than what he did.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020072/

I'm not sure how this protest solves the problem of cops shooting black people.
The point is that black people have no political or social power to capitalize on solving this problem, so they need to create conditions under which the people who do have that power will do anything at all.
 
That's pretty much how many protests work. Again, disruption of city and private services to draw attention to a cause that is not being addressed.

And there aren't any methods of disrupting public and and private services that won't potentially cause the lioss of human life? How should these BLM protestors feel if, for example, a child and 2 adults died in an ambulance stuck in their protest because they needed immediate access to an ER?
 
So that makes it okay? it's one thing to make an impression in ways that stick, even if it inconveniences. It's another thing to risk lives.

They can cut off the bridge if they want, if, let's say, an ambulance needed to drive by and they barred its passage then, yeah, the protesters would be at fault. These aren't idiots, they're going to let emergency and service vehicles through. I would suspect most protests that hinder traffic don't prevent those guys from getting through.
 
It's an ad hominem? Do elaborate.

If you're offended by his mention of "white", then mentally remove it from the quote and re-read it to yourself.

I'm not trying to shut down discussion either. I'm trying to address someone's misguided rage. If you disagree with the quote feel free to explain why, don't do drive-by shitposting.
I disagree with the invocation of the quote as a means of saying "you vaguely fit this profile, authority says this about your profile, you are therefore wrong and you are the problem." Which is what you did. I don't categorize rightfully calling that out as shitposting.
 
You suggested that they were monsters because they were blocking traffic.

Don't talk about simplification.



What kind of protest would you recommend to solve this problem?

blocking traffic is abhorrent behavior, i can't believe you guys don't see that

Man, calling the folks who embody the spirit of MLK and embrace his methods "pieces of shit" on MLK day, lol. The jokes write themselves.

yeah, they're not embodying nothing by doing this
 
I'm not sure how this protest solves the problem of cops shooting black people.

I'm unsure how this protest:

By late July the Chicago Freedom Movement was staging regular rallies outside of Real Estate offices and marches into all-white neighborhoods on the city's southwest and northwest sides.

was meant to get the city of Chicago to get rid of slums and house discrimination. I mean, those folks probably agreed with the people protesting! Why didn't they protest City Hall?

The Chicago Freedom Movement was the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the North of the United States, lasted from mid-1965 to early 1967, and is largely credited with inspiring the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
 
And there aren't any methods of disrupting public and and private services that won't potentially cause the lioss of human life? How should these BLM protestors feel if, for example, a child and 2 adults died in an ambulance stuck in their protest because they needed immediate access to an ER?
Did it happen? Why is every one of these threads riddled with shit that didn't happen? Actually, nevermind..forgot..
 
And there aren't any methods of disrupting public and and private services that won't potentially cause the lioss of human life? How should these BLM protestors feel if, for example, a child and 2 adults died in an ambulance stuck in their protest because they needed immediate access to an ER?

Your hysterical hypothetical required not one, not two, but THREE victims? And one was a child no less!
 
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