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March 10, 2016 Mid-Semester Assignment Activism without Concrete Outcomes An activist movement like Black Lives Matter, promotes their slogan against injustice and police brutality, while using strategies and tactics slightly different from the Civil Rights era. Although both social movements have the same purpose of fighting against violence, the effectiveness of their tactics differ. The different levels and forms of activism help us understand the various mechanisms of segregation and inequality throughout generations. There is no doubt in recognizing mobilizations in the Black Lives Matter social movement; however, there are not always concrete outcomes because of reasons such as the government not taking the right initiatives to make radical change, and tactics not being effective enough to disrupt the social structure. Black Lives Matter or BLM is an activist movement of the AfricanAmerican community, that campaigns and strategizes against violence toward black people. BLM organizes protests after deaths of black people by law enforcement officers, and more general issues like police brutality and racial inequality in the criminal justice system. Black Lives Matter began by many people using social media, creating an "hash-tag activism' with a goal to spread awareness to millions of people in haste. Throughout time, Black Lives Matters has embraced various tactics that make people feel distressed enough to address the social issue. For instance, BLM has also

been known to attain power through protesting because they organize rallies and marches after black people were killed unjustly. Moreover, they held marches for Corey Jones, an African-American man who was shot by a police officer while waiting by his disabled car in Palm Beach, Florida. During the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday, October 4, 2015, BLM has also staged die-ins where they would lay on the ground, blocking roads and disrupting the social structure. Traffic on a few streets were blocked because marches were held and people chanted, “No justice, no peace, prosecute the police!" Some protestors held up signs with slogans like “Black Lives Finish Times.” Protestors occupy an area for a short time instead of being forced to leave by the police as occurred during the civil rights era. Most of the protestors were arrested for rioting during the era, but today, only a few are arrested or let alone to freely express their voice (the first amendment). Today, people are also expressing their views through social media Twitter and Facebook by sharing posts or hash-tags. The farthest they have gone was protesting and forming die-ins. This makes me question whether force and disruption is needed to bring about radical outcomes because organizations through social media are not effective enough. A tactic of bringing together thousands of people can be useful when trying to grab the attention of the targeting audience. Although BLM is an huge activist group, the amount of protestors gathered for some marches in BLM may have not been enough to make the movement as effective as the Civil Rights era. If their tactics were to march and hold up signs to grab

attention and target the police, then thousands of people are needed to make this movement stronger and more uncomfortable for authorities to bring change. Although some of their protesting brought together thousands of people, they should be consistent. For example, only about eighty people of the BLM group marched into the street on Dayton Avenue, then north over to St. Anthony Avenue. This is not effective enough to construct concrete outcomes. On the other hand, during the Civil Rights Era, activist leaders like Rose Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X brought together thousands of people to form nonviolent protests and civil disobedience to bring reforms. Some of them risked their lives to fight for justice and equality. Although Black Lives Matter fights for the same reasons, a fight through social media is not as effective as a fight with higher risks like in the Civil Rights Era. Ultimately, laws need to be introduced by the government to bring radical change. An activist movement that uses the tactic of disrupting the social structure would result in concrete outcomes like the government passing laws. For example, there were many breakdowns that resulted in the Civil Rights Era when leaders defied the rules that ordinarily governed life. For example, the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The tactics and strategies of the Civil Rights era were effective enough to attain concrete and successful outcomes like giving equal voting rights and human rights. As one can imagine, Martin Luther King's strategies were to not only

bring attention against violence and segregation, but to also get the federal government to intervene. His tactic was to form marches where police were and bring it to media's attention. BLM did get social media involved tremendously; however, it did use the power of disruption to bring more effective results as authors, Piven and Cloward would argue is necessary to make a social movement successful. During the Civil Rights era, many people caused disruption to the social structure, and died as a result of their protests. If the BLM activist movement used tactics like disrupting the social structure or something as strong as the Civil Rights era, then there would have been a higher chance of their movement to have lucid outcomes. In Poor People’s Movements, authors Piven and Cloward provide a platform in which how people who lack financial resources and influence in politics can nevertheless create momentous revolts. They argue that movements are successful based on their "power to disrupt the social structure", the importance of the movement to elites, their public support for the movement, and people have something to concede. An activist movement like BLM is made up of mostly African American communities who are middle class generally receiving lower wages and less political networks than white communities. According to the authors, "simply put, people cannot defy institutions to which they have no access, and to which they make no contributions" (Cloward, Piven; 23). For instance, a black unemployed person would not have something to concede if he is not working; he cannot go on strike for higher wages for instance. However, if a

white employed person wanted a higher salary, he or she could disrupt the social structure by forming a strike with his coworkers and other employed people. Despite inequality and oppression, the lower classes do not mobilize and are ignored or suppressed if they do so. This is a major struggle for them because they lack political networks, public support or financial resources to assist them in their fight for justice and equality. Reforms favor the poor only under some circumstances; the authors argue that if the movement involve "a sequence or a combination of structural dislocations", then the poor could mobilize successfully for their class interests. With that being said, we may see mobilizations in poor people's movement, but also a lack of flourishing results. In his text, "Small Change", Malcolm Gladwell claims that social media encourages social change compared to the organizations who have actually made radical change occur. For example, he talks about the sit-ins of the civil rights movement and explains how social media sites like Twitter and Facebook cannot cause the relationship between individuals that we see in activist movements, and they do not "survive in high-risk environments" (Gladwell 1).

On a Monday, February 1, 1960, when a college student

requested a cup of coffee in the lunch counter, a waitress replied, "We don't serve Negroes here" (Gladwell 1). Protestors gathered together and formed sit-ins which disrupted the social structure. Police got involved and thousands of people were arrested. The author says, "thousands were arrested and untold thousands more radicalized. These events in the early

sixties became a civil-rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade and it happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter" (Gladwell 2). This shows that without social media, more concrete outcomes were made because the government actually took initiatives to bring reforms, and people used their power to disrupt the public during the civil rights era. On the other hand, BLM has not caused this much disruption even with their die-ins. In Doug McAdam's Political Process and the development of Insurgency, the author introduces a political-process model that discusses the rise and decline of the black protest movement. He talks about the role of three institutions that promote protest: black churches, black colleges, and the Southern parts of the NAACP. McAdam claims that political opportunities, and the development of these three institutions play an important role in shaping the civil rights movement (McAdam; 66). McAdam thinks in order to make movements successful, organizations are crucial. He believes that indigenous organizations like black churches and universities are formal and conservative, but not focused enough to start a social movement. Therefore, he agrees that independent organizations like southern chapters of the NAACP are more capable of starting a social movement because they are focused and inevitable. Black Lives Matter is a focused organization because they have a specific goal of ending violence against blacks and ending racism. It seems that being focused is not enough because tactics haven't been effective

enough to make the government take action. A tactic like disrupting the social structure may be more useful in giving the movement more successful outcomes. Black Lives Matter mobilizes people and makes them care by showing the brutality, violence, segregation and inequality they experience through protesting, marching and spreading awareness on social media. But they have not created outcomes like McAdam describes in Freedom Summer, the creation of freedom schools, homes and community centers in small towns of Mississipi like activists did during the civil rights era. Massive disruptions like 37 churches and 30 homes being bombed and burned, led to radical outcomes in the past. Nothing this massive has occurred or been done with Black Lives Matter in comparison to the civil rights era.

Comparing both the old and modern movements help us to understand the differences in levels of forms of activism between generations. There are different mechanisms of segregation in both discussed movements. The Civil rights movement fought against lawful segregation whereas Black Lives Matter today fights against an unlawful, but still-existing segregation. In history, laws like the Jim Crow restricted blacks from voting. There were poll taxes that were imposed, which clearly couldn't be afforded by blacks because of the low income they had. In addition, literacy tests had to be passed in order to vote, and blacks couldn't read or write because most of them couldn't afford to be educated. Separation of water fountains, churches, schools and transportation made it difficult for blacks to obtain equal respect and rights. Black Lives Matter fights against an unlawful but

still-existing segregation in our societies. Even though there is no law separating whites and blacks, blacks are still being targeted by police and killed unjustly. On a "New Politics" website, an article called, "Black Lives Matter Constructing a New Civil Rights and Black Freedom Movement" by a professor of Wayne State University, Francis Shor discusses how the activism in Black Lives Matter is "another wave in a long struggle for black freedom" (Shor 1). This movement is not just about police brutality; it has become more about black freedom and a continuous struggle against racism or segregation they had throughout history. The article by Francis Shor also states that Darsheel Kaur, a community organizer with the Ohio Student Association said, "It’s more than just police brutality. It’s about systems in place that continue to devalue the lives of black and brown people in different aspects, including the prison industrial complex, economic and food systems, the housing market, voting rights" (Shor 2). This shows how blacks are still being unvalued today by some people in society who tend to constantly target them. Francis Shor also makes us question whether the tactics used in BLM are less effective than the civil rights era is because of the lack of using power of disruption. He demonstrates this when he states, "But will the die-ins and other protest activities of this new movement have the efficacy of the older movement? Do the new movement centers from #BlackLivesMatter have the same staying power as those Southern movement centers from the long civil rights movement? If the new

movement, as Dante Barry argues, “is about transforming power structures,” what are the strategic levers that they will use to implement that transformation?" (Shor 3). From personal experience, I have seen many teenagers, adults and college students of African American decent or dark skin color be mistreated verbally and physically by the public. When walking in the streets or driving their cars, black people are stopped by the police and viewed as criminals or dangerous figures by a stereotypical society. One time, on Bathgate near Fordham University, two teenagers were involved with drugs in a car. When the cops arrived, they questioned the black teenager and locked him up in prison, while telling the white teenager to just leave the scene. This represents inequality and specifically mistreatment towards blacks. If both people were equally wrong for doing the same thing, then they should receive equal punishment. However, in today's society, that is not the case because segregation and racism still exists even if it is in different mechanisms. Even though there are no laws that prove the existence of segregation, there is a different mechanism of segregation blacks encounter today. In addition, the government does not take any initiatives to stop acts of injustice, whereas during the Civil Rights era, the government gave voting rights, human rights, equality and a stop against violence towards the black population. A tactic is concrete if it is specific and achieves an objective. In order to succeed, concrete tactics must force a response from the target

audience and create radical change. People often get discouraged by direct action or using the power to disrupt, and instead get involved in communicative action through social media, expecting a concrete outcome. Direct action during the civil rights era had a strong impact on creating outcomes. Actions taken by BLM through social media have not brought radical differences today. In order to reduce police violence and racism against blacks, people must not only use more effective tactics like the power to disrupt the social structure, but also target government officials to bring about laws to ensure change.

Works Cited

Frances Fox Piven, Richard Cloward. 1978.Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. Vintage. Francis, Shor. "Black Lives Matter." New Politics. Web. http://newpol.org/content/ %E2%80%9Cblack-lives-matter%E2%80%9D-constructing-new-civil-rights-and-blackfreedom-movement, 12 Mar. 2016.

Gladwell, Malcolm. "Small Change." Electronic Journals - Fordham University Libraries. Web. 13 Mar. 2016. McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford, 1988. Print. McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1982. Print....