That US soldier who self immolated a few weeks ago to protest the genocide in Gaza was pretty effective. Oh wait, no it's still happening. And I guess self harm is still violence. Either way I agree with you.
Moderate, considerate and thought through opinions get massively down voted in this thread. Thinking problems through will always be a less popular than taking out the pitchforks and following the herd.
I'm as disappointed in humans as you are, but I did find a few more bright spots in this thread :)
King's and Abernathy's houses were firebombed, as were four black Baptist churches. Boycotters were often physically attacked.
Two days after the inauguration of desegregated seating, someone fired a shotgun through the front door of Martin Luther King's home. A day later, on Christmas Eve, white men attacked a black teenager as she exited a bus. Four days after that, two buses were fired upon by snipers. In one sniper incident, a pregnant woman was shot in both legs. On January 10, 1957, bombs destroyed five black churches and the home of Reverend Robert S. Graetz...
But what if your message is "can we all get along together please?" the other persons message is litteraly "you don't deserve a vote, you don't deserve equal rights, you don't even deserve to drink the same water as me, you are not even legally a person, this is the law, get out of my face nigge* before the lynch mob arrives, because I won't stop them"
How are you supposed to remove yourself from that situation when that situation is brought onto you, and there's no way to simply negotiate or compromise because the two "opinions" are diametrically opposed.
If someone's boot is on another person's throat, I honestly don't care if I sound like an asshole as I tell them to move their fucking boot. I'd rather be an asshole on the right side of history than a coward who was just following orders.
I do understand your point, but as a layperson there is no real way to single out your protest impact to only effect those directly responsible, especially when, in most cases, those directly responsible are removed from the community to a degree that there is little you could do to impact them without also impacting their innocent underpaid intern who's just trying to do their job.
Yes, protesting impacts a bunch of people that can't individually do anything and are therefore being inconvenienced (mildly or substantially, depending on the individual) for something they have no control over that is someone else's fault.
But I think part of the reason you see it this way is due to a general a lack of solidarity. If I'm inconvenienced because my bus is stuck behind a protest, that sucks, but I'm not going to blame the protesters (unless I genuinely disagree with their requests/what they're protesting) I'm going to blame the very same people the protesters are trying to reach, because they are the reason that petitions, inquires, public outcry and lobbying hasn't worked and now we're at a stage of protest.
It might push a few of us to get off the bus and join the protest because what else can we do. It might prompt someone to write into their local representatives to push them to hurry up and sign negotiations so the protest can end because they're sick of the slow bus.
There's no such thing as someone that has "nothing to do with the issue" when the issue impacts us as a society. If you feel like a social issue has nothing to do with you, but the protests around it are impacting you, you have to ask yourself what you're gaining from the current system, and what stands to be gained from the changes demanded by the protesters. If you genuinely think you have nothing to do with it, you might be a true hermit.