When you read a piece of advice about attending a protest from a seasoned peace advocate that rubs you the wrong way or doesn’t reflect your perspective, it’s because they’re expressing their lived experience. It’s not about you. They will probably be thankful when you share your advice, based on your lived experience.
They didn’t craft their careful admonitions in response to something you wrote. They didn’t even send it to your inbox. They didn’t call themselves the go-to protest advice hotline. They didn’t say that your plans were wrong because, well, you didn’t publish your plans, as far as I can tell. They voiced a perspective. Let’s hear yours.
And it wasn’t written for you in the first place. It was written for the couple that just graduated from high school and are on their first road trip, first time in LA, and find themselves at their first demonstration, and 1992 was 15 years before they were born, and they didn’t grow up in a place where demonstrations were part of the landscape.
It was written for the cynical, disaffected white Gen X dude who thinks protests are the opportunity to tip things over the edge, and plans to torch a couple of Teslas, and, if he’s lucky, a Federal building.
It was written for the woman in her 40’s who has so much anxiety about the fact that things might get out of hand, but her whole heart is in the movement, and she believes that it’s her civic duty to show up, even though she knows that if things get out of hand, it could trigger severe emotional distress related to events that happened in her childhood.
It was written for the immigrant family who want to participate but don’t feel safe being anywhere on the perimeter where they are more vulnerable to being recognized or even photographed, as that could result in their being deported for being subversive, and they’d like to be surrounded by supportive people whose motives and methods they trust.
Even though you are a seasoned advocate for justice and have attended many demonstrations, many people will be attending this one for the first time. Some of those people might find value in hearing different perspectives because that’s how they learn.
That seasoned peace advocate wasn’t writing to you, because maybe they know you’re good, and you don’t need to hear it. Maybe they know you’re doing the right things, and they don’t need to comment on those things. Maybe they know that everybody doesn’t know how to talk to everybody, but that you know how to talk to the people you know how to talk to, and you’re doing it.
They voiced a perspective, based on lived experience, about how to not die at a protest. I look forward to hearing yours, and if it’s good, I’ll amplify it too.