What we need are leaders.
I'm not a scholar of sociology, history, or any discipline that would allow me to speak to this topic with authority, but as a person living in the US negotiating our national and global political climate and trying (or perhaps hoping) to work in small ways to advocate for equity and justice, it feels there is very little movement able to be made these days.
We can protest. A protest is happening right now that I do indeed support. I do not want a generation of thousands of children traumatized by our government and a generation of adults who by and large have hurt no one and have nowhere else to go because their home country is just as dangerous detained, treated as subhuman, and then what? Deported? What, except death, will stop them from returning to be with their families? The human will is strong.
I marched in one of the Women's Marches. I almost went to this march today. Scorn me if you will, but I am sensing that the gathering and the cheering is making us visible to one another, which is good. It is showing us and our political representatives that we are not alone in our values and our care of one another. Camaraderie is good. Visibility is essential. But are we making any political change?
We need leaders to see the larger view, to anticipate and shape the stories that go viral. We need storytellers who are anticipating history.
As an example, let's remember Rosa Parks. According to Zeynep Tufekci’s Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (as summarized from Nathan Heller's "Is there Any Point in Protesting?") during the Civil Rights era "the Montgomery N.A.A.C.[P. had a] shrewd process of auditioning icons. 'Each time after an arrest on the bus system, organizations in Montgomery discussed whether this was the case around which to launch a campaign,' [Tufekci] writes. 'They decided to keep waiting until the right moment with the right person.' Eventually, they found their star: an upstanding, middle-aged movement stalwart who could withstand a barrage of media scrutiny. This was Rosa Parks."
The night Parks was arrested a professor at Alabama State College created an announcement of the boycott, made copies, and distributed it through local networks. The boycott, originally meant to last a single day, had such a large number of protesters that the organizers decided to keep it going. It ended up lasting for over a year. This, of course, required the creation of a carpool network to get protesters to work - a network that consisted of 325 cars (Heller). This exemplifies the forward thinking, patient insight and analysis, and consistent effort it takes to create change in policy which creates social change.
What we need are leaders. We need strategically-minded people with restraint and an understanding of the economic impact that protest can have to change policy. Presence of passionate people with signs is the thing we still have pictures of. It is the thing we are imitating. From what I can gather, we have no grassroots political leaders who are strategizing and coordinating anything on this large a scale. We have the untapped power, if we have the impassioned restraint and power of will, to create boycotts that could be on the national scale. What we need is individuals to see them through and negotiate with political leaders.
The March on Washington had not only Martin Luther King Jr. giving inspirational speeches and negotiating with politicians. It also had Bayard Rustin who made sure the food available would not spoil during the march and that the sound equipment was of the highest quality. He also had inroads to those in power when someone sabotaged their equipment (Heller).
Flash mobs and pop-up protests, even if they last for months, need someone who is articulating demands and sometimes coordinating economic impact via peaceful means. Presence of people shouting can be either annoying or inspiring (depending on your own feelings about the topic of their protest), but not something that needs essential response to in order for the system of government to continue to function. No riders on a bus system means no money moving in where money was expected. That's, unfortunately, a problem that politicians have to solve. We need more organized effort.
I'm not saying I'm done with protests and rallies. I'm sure I'm far from it. Sometimes it feels good to gather and be outraged together. But we need to get beyond what makes us feel good. We need more than camaraderie at this point, so I'll still be thinking about and looking for leaders who have staying power. I hope you'll read Nathan Heller's article in "Is There Any Point in Protesting?" the New Yorker to continue to think about this topic yourself.
“The recent studies make it clear that protest results don’t follow the laws of life: eighty per cent isn’t just showing up. Instead, logistics reign and then constrain. Outcomes rely on how you coördinate your efforts, and on the skill with which you use existing influence as help.”