The subjugated and disenfranchised achieve little and lose much by violence.
The subjugated and disenfranchised achieve little no matter how much they achieve; that is the point. They are
disenfranchised because despite their ability and demonstration to perform at or above the levels of their peers they are still considered tragic. They are
subjugated because their peers
pre-judge them based on their demographics, culture, skin color, sex, orientation, etc.
Ghandi proved that you don't need to be violent.
Ghandi had to nearly starve himself to prove his points - several times, for more than two weeks. He used the
display of a non-violent entity in search of piece - starving nearly to death because of [insert subjugation and disenfranchisement here] and the failure of civilization/government to recognize and prevent it. But, going on a hunger strike is violent to self; if he had died it would have been suicide by starvation.
The better question is
why does someone have to starve one's self for civilized, technologically advanced individuals with morals to recognize injustice? This question needs to be asked in America similarly:
How can Black American Citizens continue to be brutalized and killed by law enforcement in their own nation - on camera, and frequently - and why do the citizens allow it?
So did Martin Luther King.
And, yet he was still assassinated. And, let's not forget the government itself threatened MLK's nonviolence - which shows nothing has actually changed.
Violence plays into the hands of authoritarians. It gives them the opportunity to whittle away your freedoms while pretending to enforce law and order.
Yes, but this isn't about the authoritarians anymore; this is about the people. The people that ignore these things talked about, and the people that apologize for situations of (what should be) clear signs of gross mistreatment and injustice
embolden the authoritarians to do what they do. In reality the authoritarians have set forth an excellent campaign to keep the one power the people have that could take them down: each other.
They have convinced people that they are different, that skin color and zip code matters - when in reality, all that matters is
birthname and connections to power. You can be filthy rich and have no real power in the world. People running amok explaining away clear abuses of power and injustice don't realize they will experience the same treatment
because of an apology for the injustices.
As The people of Hong Kong are finding this out right now. Will the rest of the world step in and protect them? Not a hope.
They already know/knew this; that is why they are doing what they have been doing.
The world bullied poor little South Africa into ending apartheid.
They were bullied into
ending apartheid? So they should have kept apartheid in S.A.?
Again, Africa is the world's tragic story; no one actually cares about African apartheid except for that "bad press" you mentioned. They weren't bullied into ending apartheid; they could have kept it up - but just lost their funding and trade partners. There is always a choice.
But, it would be ludicrous to believe apartheid ended for reasons other than financial instability and the threat of losing allies and trade partners - the same reason slavery "ended" in the States. You can tell the quality of a nation by the way they treat their "lowest" society members.
The worst they will do to China is send a diplomatic note of disapproval. All that violence will do for minorities in the US is reinforce existing prejudices.
People have the choice to change their prejudices, but they don't because they are comfortable, cultural and familiar. That is why the incident in the OP can happen, and why
even in protests this extreme there will be nothing to come from it - because nothing will ever come from it.
You don't seem to be able to empathize with being someone who "everyone thinks is a no good thug that cant do anything right, a tragic case that must be
taught how to live as if you were a child, and so disposable that the majority of the nation that alleges to be your home is
comfortable with sending you to prison if the right person simply
says, ".. black guy is [insert falsehood here]". It isn't hard to empathize with animals, right? It shouldn't be hard to empathize with humans if you are a human because you are the same species.
You don't have to be black to empathize with what its like to be Black in America: you just have to have eyes (or, these days only ears). There are already enough people who are being called traitors to their race because they have the audacity to call out this behavior. But, in general
when it happens to people that matter in the States then we will hear the same pleas we are hearing the "thugs" project now. Except, anyone that could have helped would have already been gone/lost/forgotten.
