Protests Don’t Lead to Change
Without any real plan of action, protests never lead to any real change. While #BlackLivesMatter has been incredibly effective at getting thousands of people together to march or protest, the aftermath of the rallies often results in nothing more than social media buzz. The Atlantic’s Moises Naim recently slammed the recent string of street protests as the “latest manifestation of the dangerous illusion … that street protests based more on social media than sustained political organizing is the way to change society.”
The Community Needs More Than National Discussions
The immediate result of the #BlackLivesMatter protests was the national attention garnered for police brutality and racial disparities in the justice system. The nation was finally talking about a problem that was so often swept under the rug … but that was it. As Naim explained, “Government responses usually amount to little more than rhetorical appeasement, and certainly no major political reforms.” He pointed to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff who “publicly validated the frustrations of those who took to the streets of her country, and promised that changes would be made, but those ‘changes’ have yet to materialize.”
