A Few Things About Social Movements

Image: https://www.islam21c.com/politics/boycott-as-a-tool-for-change/

As a sometimes-social movements scholar, I’m struck by how little civilians understand movement politics. Here’s a couple of thoughts from the literature that may help folks along.

Government Response to Protests

The first thing to know is that authorities – government and their enforcement arm, the police – generally respond to protest politics in two ways: repression and co-optation, sometimes simultaneously.

The repression has been obvious in Richmond the past few weeks. We’ve seen police demonstrating military tactics, from riot gear to armored vehicles to walling off police headquarters, and most famously using chemical weapons on protestors on multiple occasions.

(One key point from the literature that needs constant reinforcement: historically, most violence comes from authorities, not protestors, although the latter are often blamed for it.)

Government leaders also can try to defuse the movement’s force through concessions. And so Governor Ralph Northam suddenly decides to remove the Lee monument; Mayor Levar Stoney suddenly supports a police civilian review board.

But concessions often lead to efforts to co-opt, or essentially take over, the movement. For example, Stoney has proposed a “Reimagining” task force that will evaluate police policies. He may try to invite some movement organizers to participate. Authorities often try to funnel the energy of movement leaders into “normal” politics so that the defiant action in the streets can stop. Task forces and commissions are an excellent neutralization mechanism because while they are sometimes able to produce change, they take time to do so while helping officials put off immediate action. (Remember the Monuments Commission?)

And so movement actors have to respond to these efforts. How much should they engage with these government co-optation efforts?

Strategy and Movement Organizations

This brings me to the second key point from the literature: movements are, by their very nature, informal and inchoate. There is no “President of the Black Lives Matter Movement,” no office to call, no org chart. There are movement leaders and organizations, but they do not form a stable and coherent whole.

A movement is like a fleet of ships, with varying crew sizes and motivations for being on the water. Most share a vague opposition to authority and rejection of the status quo. But they might follow directions or might not; they might move in formation or go out on their own; they can leave at any time.

Some boats might even be more sympathetic to authorities than others. We’ve seen movement participants here in Richmond seem to act on behalf of authorities; in essence they try to co-opt from within. (You know who you are.) Still, many others are well-meaning and just differ about strategy. For example, some folks organized a march with police a week or two ago, and other folks thought this was a really bad idea. Maybe it was, but politics is messy, and movement politics more so.

From an academic perspective, it is fascinating watching these debates about strategy play out in real time, both on social media and in the streets. Still, I should be clear about that fascination: I try never to lose sight of the fact that this is not a game. Protest is hard, with severe costs for participants -- as those gassed, beaten and detained have learned the hard way – and huge stakes for the future of our city.

Movements and Elections

Speaking of those huge stakes: this movement may have dramatic effects on this fall’s citywide elections. This does not always happen. Movements arise in part because electoral politics haven’t produced change, or at least haven’t moved fast enough to do so. But they don’t always convert movement energy into the electoral arena.

I’m not sure what’s going on in other cities, but here in Richmond there has been a clear effect. There seems to be some new energy behind existing candidates like Amy Wentz and Allan-Charles Chipman, who are challenging incumbent members of City Council. But also we’ve seen new Council candidates like Joseph Rogers and especially Tavarris Spinks who seem directly motivated by the movement.

The most significant change to the electoral landscape is, of course, the entry of Alexsis Rodgers into the mayoral race. The Rodgers candidacy seemed to materialize as an almost direct response to Kim Gray’s conservative responses to the protests. It remains to be seen how much movement activity will translate into votes for Rodgers and others, but this fall will look very different from what we expected just a few weeks ago.

Of course, all this election talk is premature in the sense that the movement, qua movement, is far from over. People are still in the streets. And so the question for movement organizers and actors is how to maintain energy and what specifically to do. Movement energy cannot help but fade over time, but the decisions people make matter. There’s more to come.