Violence and Anti-Violence Movements: A few simple observations

There seems to be some confusion about what to say regarding the recent violence against police in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Most of this confusion is courtesy of those who would like to condemn protests against police violence. However, there are some complexities in addressing the issue that I would like to note here, in case they may be of any use moving forward.

First, I would argue that confronting police violence with violence continues to be a bad idea, and this for several reasons.

1. As many in the Black Lives Matter movement have pointed out, it would be hypocritical to condemn violence on the one hand and practice it on the other.

2. One of things Black Lives Matter is condemning is a way of relating to others. One should not, in opposing that way of relating, also stoop to its level. This does not require politeness; there is, after all, a difference between being polite and being nonviolent.

3. At a purely tactical level, it is a mistake to oppose an adversary on the ground where the adversary is strongest. Opposing police violence with violence is just such a mistake. It plays to the adversary’s strength. Creative nonviolence opposes police violence where it is weak. (Had police been stronger in this area, many of the recent murders/lynchings wouldn’t have happened.)

Second, and here is where the confusion comes in, it should be recognized that one can believe all of the above and still believe that under current conditions violence against the police should be expected, even if opposed. Police around the country are provoking our African American brothers and sisters mercilessly. This is not only a matter of the murders/lynchings. It is also a matter of daily abuse and humiliation, as we have seen exemplified with Philandro Castile. To put the point simply, one cannot provoke a people continuously and not expect some of them to be provoked.

This provocations are reinforced by other state institutions. As Cornel West has recently observed, President Obama flew over Minnesota and Baton Rouge on his way to honor the murdered police in Dallas. Flags fly at half-mast for murdered police, but not for murdered African Americans (and others, Latinos especially). Although they claim that “All Lives Matter,” those in state institutions demonstrate by their public gestures that they do not believe this. They believe that black lives do not matter as much as other lives, for instance blue lives. That is why we must continue to insist that Black Lives Matter.

So we should both condemn violence and point out that continued police provocation should come with an expectation that there will be occasional violence against police. Are the police justified in condemning the violence against them? That depends on the extent to which they have been active in opposing police violence itself. Currently, there is a hypocrisy upon which the media has not commented: police condemn the killing of police, but not the killing of African Americans by police. Such hypocrisy compromises their standing to condemn violence against them. Ironically, we who embrace nonviolence are in a moral position to oppose violence against police. Most police are not. When and if they — or the state institutions that support them — are more forthright in condemning the violence they commit, then and only then will they earn something more from us than a principled opposition to violence, something more like sympathy and solidarity.

Todd May, author Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction