The Two Sides of a Protest

What are your thoughts on people taking to the streets?

There are two points I'd like to make about protests, and I hope you'll ride this out.

First up: yes, people get frustrated and lash out. This means sometimes a mob mentality takes over and bad things happen.

You might wonder to yourself, how do people get that mad? You have a computer, don't you? Haven't you ever got so mad that you wanted to punch it and throw it across the room? You've also no doubt been done dirty a time or two in your life and also saw red.

Now, imagine you see your people being targeted and even killed in a regular and systematic way. Sorry, I don't mean to trivialize this whole thing, but yeah, you can get mad enough to destroy things, too.

Now, let's go to the other side of the coin: the problem with protests.

First off, when protests lead to vandalism and looting, a lot of people who might have supported you check out. A bigger problem is, 'what do you want'? In other words, what do you hope to achieve by protesting.

I'm well aware that currently, people are expressing their outrage over a police killing and what definitely looks like different races held to different standards. The question is, 'what can be done TODAY to make you go home'? What is your goal? Do you have a local leader to express that to?

Maybe you're just putting authorities on blast and letting them know where the real power lies, but there has to be an endgame. Otherwise, everything you're doing is for nothing.