REDEFINING THE PROTEST IN PROTEST CULTURE

Thousands of protests take place every day, many of which seemingly to no avail. While protests have the potential to instigate change, we cannot rely solely on protests to get our voices heard. redefining the PROTEST PROTEST CULTURE in

Year after year, millions of people with sloganemblazoned posters fill streets around the world for hours at a time. It’s become a global phenomenon, labeled the Global Protest Wave of 2019, where the number of high profile protests has

grown significantly since the start of 2019.

On the local level, Fairfax County’s recently enacted civic engagement policy, allowing students an excused partial day off to participate in civic engagement activities, is only proof of the spreading spirit of political activism in our society.

With thousands of protests occurring every day, you’d think that there’d be more change happening in response. According to protest culture critics, the underwhelming response from higher authorities make protests useless attempts at getting our voices heard. A 2014 Stanford study that found mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little independent influence on governmental policy, is even more discouraging. As they stand right now, protests are not the most effective means to instigating change -- but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. We simply need to be more intentional with the way we structure our protests.

So what makes a protest effective? Recently, when Virginia teachers rallied for increased education funding, their protests were effective because their

goals were clear and specific. Protests are also successful when they’re non-violent. As soon as people get hurt, the spotlight immediately goes to the violence, and not the message. Finally, protests will only be effective if they’re continually gathering attention. If protests occur sporadically or only once a year, a big change will not result.

As students, the actions we take to speak out may be limited. Marches are important because they offer us a way to show support, given that students have a limited number of methods to influence change.

We can’t just stop at protests, though. There are other options to get our voices heard: writing letters, lobbying, phone calls. If you’re truly passionate about an issue, do everything you can to take that issue directly to the place where legislation is made.

PHOTO// Grace Mak