Protest Response Quotes

For the first week of the Sian events I was a first aid worker in the streets of Sian.

Usually, 'All Lives Matter' comes as a response to 'Black Lives Matter'; it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So when people say 'Black Lives Matter,' a lot of times the response 'All Lives Matter' can seem very condescending, dismissive to 'Black Lives Matter.'

Imagine if a mob of Black people wanted to go in the White House. Imagine what'd happen. It'd be tear gas. It'd be rubber bullets. It'd be the whole nine yards.

When Occupy Wall Street happened, I took my money out of Citibank. I already had problems with all the banks - Citibank, Bank of America - but I was kind of just too lazy to take my money out until I saw how Citibank responded to Occupy Wall Street.

The embassy in Cairo put out a statement after their grounds had been breached. ... An apology for America's values is never the right course. ... The statement that came from the administration was - was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a - a severe miscalculation.

I know [Rudy Giuliani] call the protesters crybabies.

I was interning in the CBS sports affiliate in Atlanta with Robin Roberts.... I was taking notes on a Braves-Padres game, and on the live feed came footage of these kids protesting and getting crushed during the Tiananmen Square uprising in China in 1989. In that moment I became like a lot of young people in this country today, horrified and inspired but confused as to what I might do.

One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity. If you can make them sufficiently uncomfortable, they frequently respond by doing what you need them to do in the spirit of setting people free or ceasing arrests.

Until educators, individuals, artists, intellectuals and various social movements address how the metaphysics of casino capitalism, war and violence have taken hold on American society (and in other parts of the world) along with the savage social costs they have enacted, the forms of social, political, and economic violence that young people are protesting against, as well as the violence waged in response to their protests, will become impossible to recognize and act on.

The police can't use clubs or gas or dogs. I suppose they will have to use poison ivy.

Displays of force in response to mostly peaceful demonstrations can be counterproductive.

There's no question that, in nearly seven weeks of nightly demonstrations, the police have done many things right, and they've done some things wrong as well.

We don't have problems. We have some protesters. Every once in a while, somebody will stand up. Today, we had a little more than normal in St. Louis in the morning. We had a number of people standing up. And it was fine. Nobody got hurt. But you know, they had to get taken out. And they're disruptive, and we do the best we can to do a little creative - have a little bit of fun with them.

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.