Topic: Kneeling for Protest
Everyone has a right to do it, meaning they do not need to seek approval nor should the government be able to punish anyone for this. But, on the other hand, no one has a right to demand anyone's approval for their exercise of free speech. Yes, athletes have a platform and a right to speech, but they dont have a right to the platform or to be immune to reactions by their employers or public.
(Not gonna waste breath on how wrong The Moron in Chief is about this)
But here's the real problem with kneeling: It's unclear communication. Do you know what kneeling is meant to convey any more than any hashtag? Is it clear what needs doing?
"Awareness" isn't what is needed. Awareness doesn't fix any problems. Even "having the perfect idea" for a solution doesn't fix problems any more than being able to explain a dance move makes you able to do it. In the case of a dance move, you only can do it with practice. In the case of policy changes, you have to come up with proposals to change rules and to establish accountability to those rules.
Systemic change comes down to this:
- Identify a pain point (this is now overdone)
- Propose a solution at the right level of scope to people who are empowered to execute changes to policy/system (hint: police policies are worked out at the local/municipal/county/state level)
- Win adoption for your proposal with people who will execute your proposed changes.
- Observe, assess effectiveness of outcome, and adjust.
If you can't do #2-#4... #1 is limited in effectiveness. And if your expression of #1 is unclear, you are making the problem worse rather than better by adding noise and confusion.
In my opinion, most street protests fail to do #1 even well. However, documents such as Campaign Zero, do a better job because they can move on to steps 2-4.