Everyday we see news reports on the TV, Internet, Phone or however you get your news feed, stories about the “mostly peaceful protesters” for Social Justice or Racial Equality. I will write a post sometime in the future about my views of social injustice and racial inequality but for the moment I am focusing on what I see as portrayed as “mostly peaceful protesters” by both the left and right wing news outlets.
How does one define the term “peaceful protesters”? To me, a “peaceful protester” is a protest without violence. Hence a “peaceful protest” is non-violent and those involved do not allow violence to be associated with their effort or cause. A peaceful protest is a movement or demonstration of a person or a group of people in order to bring attention to or to right a wrong or injustice with the absence of violence and physical harm to others or property. When a protest or demonstration sinks into chaos and physical, mental or emotional violence then it is no longer a peaceful protest. In my book, a protest is either peaceful or it is not.
Hence, the term “mostly peaceful protest” I feel is an oxymoron. Calling a riot a “mostly peaceful protest” has nothing to do with reality. It is like trying to assert that I am kind of a virgin, I am kind of pregnant, I am almost a Ph.D. Many things in life are actually binary. Either it is or it is not. Protests in my view are like that too. Either a protest is peaceful or it is not.