The right to peaceably assemble is a principle that our nation was founded upon. Indeed, when James Madison put quill to paper in 1789 as he drew up the Bill of Rights, it was the first amendment he thought to include out of those sacred ten. The Framers of the Constitution aimed to build a country that allowed every citizen to voice their opinion without a tyrannical monarch striking them down or prescribing the public a certain way to feel. This has stood true even in the 21st century, where protests are arranged in a matter of hours over Facebook event pages. As Henry David Thoreau so eloquently said in his famed work on the same subject, “Civil Disobedience,” “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and …show more content…
He later revealed that he did not vote in the presidential election last November.
Voting is arguably the only surefire method for the people of this nation to make their voices heard. If the outcome of the election is undesirable, or if an elected official or group of officials are acting undemocratically, then I fully support peaceful protest or civil disobedience. Only then can public resistance benefit the cause. However, I cannot understand why Kaepernick chose to protest only after he declined to participate in the most effective way to promote social equality, which is the election of officials who have a greater hand in catalyzing change. His logic, or lack thereof, escapes me.
Despite this one complaint concerning protest, I believe that uniting through public demonstration will become vital to preserving the livelihood of our democracy in the coming years. The Women’s March on Washington on January 21 was a beautifully orchestrated display of solidarity, not just in D.C., but across the country. Even as I’m typing this, my mother called me down to watch the news report of a protest at our local airport concerning President Trump’s executive order barring Muslims travelling from seven Middle Eastern countries from entering the
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I’ve never felt this urgency of popular resistance in America before. Not even at occupy.” Of course, she is referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, which garnered considerable global attention and massive crowds of protesters.
I agree with Penny wholeheartedly. Something has shifted in the minds of the people. Civil unrest now appears fundamental to my friends and family, which is a passion I’ve only ever seen in a select few, much less the thousands of people who marched on Washington last month or the thousands of people who continue to protest each new executive order signed by President Trump. Something has to give, and peaceful resistance may be the only way to make our voice heard right
Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ers quarterback, started much controversy against America when he remained seated for the national anthem during a preseason game against the San Diego Chargers. Kaepernick seems to had developed an enmity against America. He feels that he and fellow African American athletes should not show patriotism to their country because of the unfair treatment their ancestors went through throughout history. Although Kaepernick does have a point about the racial discrimination colored people went through throughout American history, he still has no right to disrespect his country. Kaepernick himself is not black, he is white, but he is just drawing attention to himself.
“Civil Disobedience,” by Henry David Thoreau is similar to the point the NFL star Colin Kaepernick is trying to get across. Henry says at the end of his writing The Civil Disobedience “Let Every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it,” he is saying if people will start speaking up they will start to take notice what people is actually saying and wanting. NFL star Colin Kaepernick doing national anthem he will take a knee and not stand because of all the Black African Americans that's getting killed. Not just Black African American, but all the innocent that's getting served no justice. Both had spoke out against the governor and that's how Thoreau and Kaepernick are
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Colin Kaepernick
In light of the recent presidential election, many people fear for their freedom as restrictions on immigration, religion, and abortion rights have been proposed. As a result of this, on January 20th, countless citizens banded together across America in “Women’s Marches”, the largest of about 400,000 people at Washington, D.C. (10 Actions). At these protests, advocating for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, zero arrests were made. These peaceful gatherings gained the attention and unification of many people across the country and motivated citizens to continue to organize events. At the Women’s March on San Francisco, it was said by a speaker that we are “on the right side of history”. As people continue to vocalize their disagreements with the government, change will always be made, though it may be
Using civil disobedience to solve an issue may require mass protests. Using protests shows that many are on your side, and that may bring your opponent down. Some protests may not be a march, for instance, the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, colonists dressed as Native Americans and raided British Ships in the Boston Harbor. This was because the colonists were very frustrated with the Tea tax. At that time, tea was like a necessity to the colonists and the British. The problem for the colonists was that the British were the ones who controlled the tea. The British East India Company was the company that imported tea. The Boston Tea Party was a huge protest against the tea tax. On that day, 116 people threw the tea on the British ships overboard (“Participants in the Boston Tea Party” 1). This resulted in harming marine life, loss of British tea, and the contamination of the water. These negative results made the British notice the colonists’ problem about the tax and how the colonists feel about the way they are treated by the
With over five million women, men and children united in all seven continents, the Women’s March was by far the largest and most peaceful protest in history. Washington, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Sydney and Paris are only a few out of the many cities world-wide that all groups of ages, genders, races and religions merged together on January 21st, 2017 to send a clear message to the brand-new government of the United States. Accumulating no arrest, the protesters conveyed that all rights are women’s rights, making the demonstration a successful act of civil disobedience. Although the Women’s March has yet to force the Congress to reform civil policy, the protest, along with all peaceful resistances, continue to positively impact free societies.
Being an American citizen today in the United States of America, one has rights. The constitution, was established to give every state the equal opportunity and the equal chance. No one person, will have more power than the other. In the Constitution, there are twenty-seven Amendments. Freedom is what has built up the nation for many years. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Baltzell, n.d.).” The most important thing taken out of the First Amendment, is the freedom. The freedom to choose, speak, worship or do anything else, one feels is necessary, as long as no law is broken. Colin Kaepernick, a football player, first took a knee, in 2016 during the National Anthem, in his own personal beliefs, and he was not wrong, because he practiced his God given rights.
In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he discusses the duty of citizens to enact civil disobedience when there are immoral actions or laws put into place. In accordance with Martin Luther King, Jr. this concept applies to our society today with the recent presidential election of the United States of America. As Donald Trump has been elected the President of the United States, there have been various acts of civil disobedience because millions of individuals do not support him in his presidency. Along with this topic, there are two distinct questions that need to be answered. First, what is civil disobedience in the eyes of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Second, are Donald Trump protests
The story of the tooth fairy has become a part of the cultural tradition of generations. Many American children discover the legend of the tooth fairy at an early age. Furthermore, this mythical tale explains the meaning behind children losing their baby teeth. It marks a rite of passage between infancy and early childhood. In the strictest sense of the definition of a myth, however, the tooth fairy does not qualify as a mythical story. It does not have all of the essential traits. So what precisely is a myth? The Greek word for myth is “mythos”, meaning “story.” According to Dr. Dennis Doyle, “A myth is a story that expresses the root meanings and values of a culture.” Although it may seem
Peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society, particularly in a Democracy such as the United States. Abraham Lincoln famously described our national foundation as a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, and for such a statement to be true, it is necessary that voices of US citizens be heard.
When African American males who are vastly capable do not reach their academic potential there are not any quick or easy fixes to this social problem. Other than temporary or situational issues there are other factors that have communally taken a toll on the performance and education experience of African American adolescent males (Ford & Moore, 2013). On the mezzo level, he has a negative interaction with his school. His mother receives a lot of negative reports from the school. Not once did his teacher and any counselors make any referrals for professional services in any of his grades. A lot of teachers do not how to engage with him. Often teachers immediately assume because he is 6’9 he is already going to be trouble because
On January 21, 2017, an estimated 500,000 Americans marched on the National Mall, continuing a longstanding tradition of protest on this public space. On this particular day, protesters sought to send a message to President Donald Trump regarding women’s rights. Known as the Women’s March, this event is only one of the more recent examples of large-scale protest and dissent on the National Mall. Throughout American history, protest movements have often made their way to Washington, D.C., the capital city and political center of the United States. Although the National Mall was not necessarily designed in a way that fosters protest, it quickly became the foremost venue for American demonstration. As AIDS activist Cleve Jones once stated, “the
Protests riots in the United States has proven to an issue for both the country’s financial strength and the unity of the nation. With the presence of social injustices, combined with the increased impact of social media propaganda, protests riots are beginning to reach an all time high. Protest riots destroy individual communities and businesses, jeopardizes the safety of others and taints the protest’s cause by resorting to civil disobedience. Action must be done in order to prevent these random acts of violence from continuing after every social hot topic. The goal is not to prevent citizens from protesting; in fact, this should be encouraged. The goal is to change the way the protests are handled from both the citizens and authority perspectives, in order to prevent these protests from escalating into something dangerous.
Civil disobedience isn’t uncommon in America, but the modern idea of civil disobedience has become flawed and distorted from its original intent. Currently, there are thousands of causes and ideals that are spastically flung around and just as soon forgotten. This is because the guise of civil disobedience is often abused by people simply to attract publicity. These methods of claimed civil disobedience often do little to nothing in working towards the goal that they claim to stand for, or their intensions are vague and unclear. For example, in the news, the most popular recent controversial example of civil disobedience is the kneeling during the national anthem before a football game. At its manifestation, this movement was intended to protest the inequalities in the treatment of races by the police especially in Chicago. This effectively accomplished nothing. It raised awareness but the majority of intelligent civilians were already aware of the inequalities. The flaw of this example is that the form of disobedience
Modern historical debate surrounding the Anglo-American Atlantic slave trade stems directly from the publication of Eric Williams’ transformative Capitalism and Slavery in 1944. Dismantling with fierce efficacy the long-dominant interpretation of abolition as a function of humanitarian enlightenment, Williams’ thesis instead contends that after providing the material foundation and trade infrastructure for Europe’s industrial revolution, slavery had fulfilled its purpose and was thus replaced by capitalism as an economic modality. Though radical for its time and considered insufficiently empirical for ours, this analysis of emancipation’s conceptual underpinnings has served as the touchstone for successive scholarly works on the