A friend who watches live feeds for hours every night has been keeping me posted about the anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, which have been taking place daily since the police killing of George Floyd in late May. One thing has puzzled me the most. Why do the massive numbers of peaceful protesters not stop the few violent protesters from setting fires or throwing things at the police?
Bad air from the horrific fires out West has helped cut down the numbers of protesters. The federal officers that Trump ordered into the city, who amped up the violence with their militaristic approach, have gone home. My question remains. So I've been trying to figure out who within the Movement has been doing what, and why.
I've gone to hundreds of protests over the years, on many related issues, including Black Lives Matter demonstrations from 2014 until COVID. The BLM protests were large, peaceful, and diverse. Even in the face of very scary-looking police, participants remained non-violent. At one protest a marcher started screaming at police — who were not being aggressive at that time — calling them "pigs" and "fascists". I stood in front of the police line facing the protester and yelled back at him, saying most police are just working people like us, trying to protect their communities. This kind of thing used to happen a lot. If we on the left don't want to all be painted with the same brush, we shouldn't do that to other groups, even the police.
I am not disputing the fact that there are many racist police, or that systemic racism and the "thin blue line" have protected police guilty of extreme violence toward Black people. I am not questioning people's right to be angry. I just wonder why the Movement against the prevailing culture of greed and violence would fail to act against violence within its own ranks.
My live-feed friend noticed that every midnight in Portland, there seemed to be a changing of the guard among protesters. The thousands of peaceful demonstrators would leave, and a new, smaller, and much more aggressive set of people would take over. It almost seemed like a shift change. The midnight-to-4am shift was when all the trouble happened. Fires were set. Objects were thrown. Who were these people?
Various fingers point to "antifa" (but we're all anti-fascist); a branch of the venerable union Industrial Workers of the World called the Portland General Defense Committee; and out-of-state instigators, some possibly paid by the far right to incite violence. Whoever they are, they are a population distinct from the peaceful demonstrators who go home at midnight.
Then I learned about the St. Paul Principles — named after the city, not the saint. They evolved from the 2008 protests against the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. They're a set of four statements laying out how the various arms of the Movement should relate to one another. They urge solidarity and tolerance of various forms of dissent. They forbid snitching on other activists. They insist any criticism should remain internal, so as not to give ammunition to Movement critics. They also tell activists committed to different tactics to "maintain a separation of time or space."
The St. Paul Principles seem to have been widely agreed upon by organizers. I suspect most protesters never heard of them. But what they mean in practice is that organizers of non-violent demonstrations agree to let violent protest events happen in another "time or space" without any agreement on limits to those actions. The organizers of these very different approaches to dissent have agreed to co-exist, in the name of Movement solidarity.
It's my belief that the Movement exists to challenge and change the prevailing culture of violence and greed — violence against the many, for the sake of the greed of a few. If we ourselves are violent, then who are we really? Do we represent change, or just more of the same?