How to Protest Safely

While protesting, in and of itself, is not protected by our Constitution, American do consider it to be a right. As with all things, though, there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. We’ve all seen plenty of the “bad” way of doing it on social media of late. So let me share with you the same information I shared with my children when they wanted to join a protest at school.

• First and foremost, do you care about the subject of the protest enough to put your life on the line? If the answer to that is no, then don’t go. It ends right there. While it may not be likely that you’ll be killed at a protest, it is never off the table, and you have to think of that very issue first, every single time.
• Can you clearly explain what the protest is about, what it is actually protesting, what relief you’d like to see as an outcome to the protest?  If not, educate yourself before you go back and ask that very first question again.
• Do you understand that, at a protest, you may be arrested? Being detained and/or arrested may involve bodily harm to you, and you MUST be willing to be arrested and/or detained, knowingly, before attending.
• Are you aware that you may be “group thinked” into performing actions that you didn’t intend? Any protest can easily and quickly turn into a mob, and a mob is an animal that doesn’t have single parts. It’s one big entity, and you can and likely will get sucked up into it. In order to avoid being part of a mob while being at a protest, you must always be aware of your surroundings and you must never devolve into letting someone else think for you.
• You must know that you may be ordered to stand down, detained and/or arrested, hit with non-lethal rounds (rubber bullets, beanbags, etc), sprayed with pepper spray or other chemicals, knocked down and hurt and injured, hit with icy cold water from water canons, spit on, screamed at, and dozens of other non-lethal things.
• There is always, ALWAYS the chance that someone will do something truly stupid, push the authorities too far, and someone gets shot. That someone could be you, EVEN if you are not part of the truly stupid person’s stuff. Bullets move in a path, and authorities who are rushed can and will shoot downrange. They’ll attempt not to get innocent people hurt, but it can happen. There is no protest, ever, that doesn’t include this possibility.

I support the right to protest. I support the right to publicly air grievances. I support free speech. But none of those block traffic, emergency vehicles, LEOs, or authorities. The moment you take your protest to a roadway or block non-participating people, you are breaking the law and you not only may be arrested, you SHOULD be arrested. The only time you should be on a roadway is if it has been lawfully blocked off by authorities to allow you a space to protest in (and this does happen, and it’s fine).

Do not block or impede people who are not involved in your protests. It can become violent, which is never good. More importantly, though, it makes those people angry with your protest. Protesting is supposed to be about bringing notice to an issue that needs changing, and if all your protests are doing is ricocheting around your own echo chamber, and pissing off the people who live in the vicinity, then you’ve lost. People in the area should look fondly upon you as the folks who came, made a loud noise and brought attention to something, then left the streets cleaner than they were when they arrived. THAT is the kind of protest that people pay full and positive attention to.

If all of the above is not being taught to you by the people organizing your protests, then they are not safe people. Stop, walk away. They may only be ignorant, which is dangerous… or they could be using you as cannon fodder, which is even more dangerous, for you.