A Culture of Protest

Whenever a group of people with common beliefs feel persecuted, they protest. Protest is a great thing, a brilliant tool used throughout history, often changing world landscapes into the present day. The right to peaceful assembly is in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, a right that will not ever been taken from you as a citizen of this country. Since our nation’s formation, we are a country built upon protest. Colonial protest to the British led to a Revolutionary War, forming the United States of America. Northern protest and Southern special interest led to a Civil War, resulting in the abolition of slavery. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the most influential peaceful protests of the Civil Rights Movement, influencing sweeping reforms in the fight for equality during the Civil Rights Era. Any student of brief United States history knows an example of when our nation has engaged in protest. It truly is part of the United States' identity, what makes the United States so unique. So, look, I get it. Protest is important. I acknowledge that. Unfortunately, a culture of protest has rapidly grown and cheapened the overall value of what a protest is today, primarily to due to an inability to pick appropriate time, place, and message, and its effects are exponentially higher due to social media and an immediate access to any sort of information available.

I struggle in starting this article. I know that it partially has something to do with the subject matter, and partially to do with the fact that I’ll be sharing this subject matter with the World Wide Web. Then again, it’s thanks to the internet that I even have a way to know what I’m writing about. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-Internet, and that’s not the point of this article. The Internet serves as an effective tool for anything the heart desires, although its massive scale provides the feeling of anonymity, something many feel they cannot experience out in the real world. I personally spend many hours daily reading the news, looking up school and random information, checking in on my friends, or checking my fantasy football lineups and injuries. But the Internet allows false advertisement, biased information, absurd facts, and unsavory environments to be fostered as well, due to the large and endless span of itself. People know everything. People now know I’ve published an article of my opinions on this website. People know every United States President and in what order, thanks to a quick Google search. People know what you look like, thanks to your Facebook page. People know about drugs, movies, sports, style, war, and more, all thanks to the Internet. The Internet is a fascinating place where anyone with access to a computer and the proper connection can go spend hours (or days) learning about whatever they so please. But that’s also the problem. As the world transitions from analog to digital, so have the way arguments changed. With it, comes increased anonymity and polarization. A simple view at a popular YouTube video’s comments section gives it away. In my eyes, a larger issue looms. As the fight for online privacy and public discourse grows, more often than not the way these issues are portrayed arrive out of seemingly nothing, and that spreads into a popularity or comedy contest. The true question remains, is every disagreement in ideology meant to be a protest?

Before I continue, let me make it clear that I sympathize and understand the protests on domestic violence, police brutality, and other social and political injustices that need addressing. They are powerful fights. Powerful statements. I am not discounting any side of causes of that nature, but I would like to discuss the rest of the protests out there. Yes, the rest, because everyone can likely name several protests they personally have heard about or participated in.

Let’s start with Harambe. Yeah, animal rights and cruelty. Great start to a first article. Half of this audience is upset already. Harambe’s death was a sad, yet necessary, incident. For whatever justification, a young child ended up in a dangerous situation, and the professionals at the Cincinnati Zoo did what they deemed necessary. On May 30^th, CNN interviewed zoo director Thane Maynard and he defends the zoo’s choice, saying “Looking back, we’d make the same decision. The child is safe.” The previous quote embodies a basic truth in the Harambe saga; we value the life of a defenseless child over that of a 450-pound silver back gorilla. But what happened afterwards? National. Outrage. There were protests over his shooting. There were multiple petitions asking or demanding various forms of justice for the gorilla. Celebrities spoke out for Harambe. Everybody had something to say about Harambe. Yet celebrities speak out about animal cruelty often, and most citizens aren’t paying any attention. When we investigate the treatment of a chicken, an animal bred for human consumption, in meat-eating and vegetarian purposes, the hypocrisy of this animal rights protest becomes all too clear. If you aren't human, you will suffer more than humans. That's why we argue about animal rights, but only to a certain extent. Shooting a gorilla to save a child's life is inappropriate, yet killing roughly 1 million chickens an hour for that same child's consumption is acceptable. To many, Harambe's death truly upset them, and they appropriately mourned his death. To others, Harambe's death was a means to a quick protest, funny catch phrases, and some Facebook fodder.

Harambe's shooting was an unfortunate event, but it happened. It's over. Let him die in peace.

As most Texans know, Open Carry in Texas became legal this January. That includes the University of Texas at Austin and all of its satellite campuses throughout the state. In protest, students began two week C**ks not Glocks: Campus Carry protest, with the logic of “if you’re gonna bring guns, why not bring dildos?”. There were forums, interest groups, Facebook event schedules, public displays of protest, all surrounding this sex symbol.

So, let’s take a step back and let’s review the core objective issue here. It is gun control, right? Open carry on college campuses, specifically the University of Texas at Austin. Many people support and do not support gun control. I welcome a healthy discussion as to why gun control is valid in certain facets, hearing other sides, and so on. Austin, TX is especially helpful, given the colorful political atmosphere. Yet instead of a legitimate form of protest to a statewide legislative, which happens to include our public universities, we choose a dildo as our martyr of gun control protest? In my opinion, the use of these phallic objects forces many to forget about the true premise of a very polarizing and real discussion that will continue long into the foreseeable future.

But let's move back to the Internet, where it's safer. Following the horrific death of a fellow UT student this past April, another student took to his keyboard to start a petition in which he requested the removal of the number of homeless people, citing the death of Hakura Weiser and other general safety concerns that were a hot topic at the time. As expected, the student's views brought support, as well as bitter disgust. Problem is, the disgust was never aimed back at this student's arguments leading to his request to remove the homeless from Guadalupe Street, which offered a problem, reason, and solution. The disgust, rather, was aimed at the student. A counter petition requested he and his "bubble of money" be banned from Guad, even though I hardly imagine the creator knew much about that student's personal life. The counter petition turned a voice into a game and promoted an online blood bath. Instead of creating a narrative, the context and purpose of the initial argument was lost in loud yells, Internet shaming, and a growing "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. This mentality allowed a concerned citizens' idea to be turned into a "white privilege" argument against the homeless, without much merit or research involved.

Again, I feel the need to stress that my arguments here do not necessarily come from the issue, but from the art of how each protest is constructed. And I stress this because each of these core issues I've raised promotes a true and a real issue we face as citizens. Animal rights, gun control, and the homeless problem, are all topics that need healthy discussion, among many others. It's the issue of when, where, and why we're finding ourselves in protest.

A human child is saved, yet up in arms (over arms' use) we go, for an encaged gorilla at a zoo, while ignoring numerous daily animal cruelties. A gorilla in a zoo? If you were looking for an animal cruelty battle, that seems a reasonable starting point. The irony of animal treatment for our entertainment seems clear. Let Harambe's legacy be worth something more than a cheap online catch phrase.

Gun control remains one of the most fervently debated topics in our current time period, but once Open Carry legislation passed, a certain type of protest morphed a gun into a sex object and the topic into a quick laugh. Though many marked their attendance at events, most had their cameras out, laughing at being a "C**ks not Glocks" protestor. I don't insinuate the founders of this protest chose this name because it was a joke to them, but to many, it was. It was the trend. But the only relevant UT campus carry discussion I've seen are three room windows with neon pages and black bold letters, reading "GUN-FREE UT". The calm, silent nature of the signs invoke way more thought at this point. And when it comes to petitions, the Internet enables those who are inclined to request literally anything.

The Obama Administration, in 2012, replied to a petition about why rebuilding the death star in order to advance our space and national defense programs would not be a realistic proposal. That's funny. What isn't funny is mercilessly attacking someone and slapping an elitist label on him, knowing that our online and increasingly public culture of protest will take his argument away. More and more everyday, people look for the next Harambe to yell about, or another funny cause to latch on to. As usual, South Park does it best in explaining my feelings at times.

NFL QB Colin Kaepernick sitting during the National Anthem seemingly out of the blue? I question the argument, and the statement moved from the police to black lives to the military. Was that a cheap cry for attention, or a serious argument? I don't know. Kaepernick reaching out to a former Green Beret and fellow Longhorn and concluding through conversation that a knee would not be disrespectful to our military? Even I, who stand patriotic on this subject, find myself not having near as much of an issue with Kaepernick's knee, mainly because he cared enough to clarify his intentions. Better yet, maybe just realizing that entertainment venues, especially our sacred NFL, are not the place for forcing protest upon a crowd as the cameras cover the players more than the actual flag. (debating better wording here) If there's anything to take away from all these protests going on today, it's to see how easy falling blindly line with what is popular or funny might take away from the true value of a that protest. Please don't think I'm against involvement or speaking out on beliefs. In fact, Ashley Eisenkramer wrote on this same site earlier this week about getting involved, and I highly recommend you give it a read. If you believe in something, stand for it appropriately. But you wouldn't stand up in a movie theater screaming about the evils of Wall St if you truly cared about it, so think about whether you want to really want to help a cause, or just be a part of the raucous crowd noise, before choosing what causes are truly worth the protest. Having an opinion is what we're always taught. But each issue in society doesn't have to spark various forms of outrage, and nor do you have to participate in anything because everyone else is doing it. But each issue in society doesn't have to spark various forms of outrage, and nor do you have to participate in anything because everyone else is doing it. Over the weekend, I learned via Podcast that California State University in Los Angeles is now offering black students segregated housing, based off a “list of demands” they had towards the President. Is that progress? Or a history lesson as to the opposite of what the Civil Rights Movement, along with all of those landmark Supreme Court cases, aimed at? Re-segregating student housing, this time upon the African American races' request for a "safe space" is completely counter productive to every racial issue our nation is currently addressing. As the University of Chicago notes, "safe spaces" are not realistic, and the school reasons safe spaces would negatively influence their students' time on campus.

Think for yourself, make your own opinions, then construct the most effective way to construct and defend that opinion. Then decide if you really want to click share or tweet next.