The risk of your movement going violent is that it deters sympathists, and it makes the targets of your violence sympathetic.
If you don’t care because you already have strong enough public support then load the cannons. Send out your suicide bombers.
But then your movement will be regarded as one that uses force. Some people will see it as justified. Some won’t. But it also weakens the effect when the police are seen busting the heads of your protestors; some will think state force against your protestors is just that wouldn’t if your group was non-violent.
This is why Martin Luther King chose a strict code of nonviolence, footage of police dogs attacking the protestors made sympathists of bystanders and activists of sympathists.
Malcom X on the other hand believed white supremacist sentiment in the US was more pervasive than King felt, and the only choice was to defend their rights by force, because the white power factions would not recognize any less.
And this is true: they do not. It’s less of a problem when outright bigotry is not acceptable within the Overton window, but it’s definitely a problem when the supremacists have a strong following in the community; though usually they only attack when they outnumber you. Hence FBI under J. Edgar Hoover killed King (likely) and also the leaders of the Black Panthers.
The risk of your movement going violent is that it deters sympathists, and it makes the targets of your violence sympathetic.
If you don’t care because you already have strong enough public support then load the cannons. Send out your suicide bombers.
But then your movement will be regarded as one that uses force. Some people will see it as justified. Some won’t. But it also weakens the effect when the police are seen busting the heads of your protestors; some will think state force against your protestors is just that wouldn’t if your group was non-violent.
This is why Martin Luther King chose a strict code of nonviolence, footage of police dogs attacking the protestors made sympathists of bystanders and activists of sympathists.
Malcom X on the other hand believed white supremacist sentiment in the US was more pervasive than King felt, and the only choice was to defend their rights by force, because the white power factions would not recognize any less.
And this is true: they do not. It’s less of a problem when outright bigotry is not acceptable within the Overton window, but it’s definitely a problem when the supremacists have a strong following in the community; though usually they only attack when they outnumber you. Hence FBI under J. Edgar Hoover killed King (likely) and also the leaders of the Black Panthers.
“Murder is only bad because other people think it’s icky” --you