Protesting Racism

Last month a noose was found hanging on the office door of Professor Madonna Constantine at Columbia University. This week two major protest activities are underway, stemming from that incident and other racist flare-ups nationwide.

The Rev Al Sharpton is leading a protest at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington DC on Friday, while students at Columbia University are camped in tents on a hunger strike. The two protests have sharply different message strategies: Sharpton calls for the Justice Department to be more proactive, and the students call on Columbia to change the curriculum. Sharpton focuses on the perpetrators of the racist actions, while the students focus on the social climate that might allow for racist actions.

Sharpton’s message at last week’s press club briefing was that the Justice Department has a lackluster response to “growing levels of hate demonstrated in this country”, citing “hate crimes and hate signs” such as hanging nooses and swastikas. His call to action is non-specific but strong: “The only way we can get some relief…is to force the federal government to do what its done since the days of Dwight Eisenhower, and that is to intervene.”

The students have struggled to both define their message and inspire broader momentum - but finally generated a New York Times article this week after completing one week of the strike. Their list of campus supporters continues to grow. Student striker Samantha Barron told the New York Times that “the university’s policies and practices foster a culture of marginalization. If students question those policies and practices they are not respected or sufficiently taken into account”. Campus facilities has brought electricity to the tents, enabling students to take their protest online through blogs, photos, videos, testimonials, and social networking pages.

Sharpton says this about the strategy of protest: “It’s not just the activity. It has to have a strategy of knowing where to hit. The people who can solve these problems of hangman’s nooses and of hate attacks is the Justice Department…You’ve got to force the Justice Department to prosecute and incarcerate some people because that will stop this overnight”.

Protests always have their detractors. One columbia student called the strike “an asinine spectacle” and some students hosted a barbeque outside of the hunger strike tents. The students join the ranks of many other strikers who are accused of muddled messaging; Variety magazine recently printed this about the current writers strike: “Many in showbiz don’t have a clear understanding of the writers’ demands or the reasoning behind those demands.” Sharpton’s tactics attract critics as well. President Kennedy opposed the tactic of organized protest in the months preceding the 1964 Civil Rights March, arguing that to gain passage of the Civil Rights Act “We want success in Congress, not just a big show at the Capitol”. Later Kennedy publicly embraced the march.

While this year’s protest activities can’t be compared to historic gatherings like the 1964 Civil Rights March, they may represent an increasing number of progressives motivated to engage in direct action. Columbia President Bollinger has been largely silent about the hunger strike, and many progressive leaders will not align themselves either with Sharpton or with the Friday march. Nevertheless, chances are that with protestors circling the Justice Department on Friday and hunger strikers camped out on the Columbia grounds on Thanksgiving, this story will only grow.