Why You Really Shouldn’t Throw Fireworks at Protests

My message is mainly for the radical chic, the people who live comfortable lives while whining about the mayor’s very reasonable request for lawful protest.

“The 60s” was a TV movie that aired on NBC in 1999. Part of it follows a Catholic family in Chicago. Julia Stiles plays Katie, who gets pregnant and runs away to a hippie commune. Jerry O’Connell is Brian, who enlists in the marines and gets shipped off to Vietnam. And Joshua Hamilton is Michael, who becomes an anti-war activist.

At a teach-in, Michael meets a radical named Kenny, played by Jeremy Sisto, who suggests the activists should lie down in front of troop trains. Michael backs up another activist who says it’s too dangerous and tells Kenny, “if you’re going to ask people to lie down in front of troop trains, at least listen when those people have something to say.”

In a later scene, activists rush a line of national guardsmen, but before violence breaks out, Michael convinces the activists to link arms instead, and chant “we’re not against the soldiers, we’re against the war.” With his quick thinking, Michael saves his friends from getting hurt while getting the movement’s message out.

If I could, I’d make this movie required viewing for everyone in Minneapolis right now. Too many people want to be Kenny, when what we need is more Michaels.

Last week, when Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” people outside the city criticized him, calling him unserious and irresponsible. In my last piece, I wrote about why those people are wrong. Now, after ICE shot a second person and more protests broke out, the mayor has said what he’s been saying all along: don’t take Trump’s bait. Protest lawfully. Instead of throwing fireworks, go home.

So now Frey is taking flak from people inside the city. But he’s not wrong. “Don’t throw fireworks while protesting” is neither controversial nor a particularly onerous ask. You can hurt innocent people doing that and aren’t those the same people you’re trying to protect? No one’s oppressing you by suggesting you leave the Roman candles at home.

I do have to wonder whether some leftists feel that whatever they do during a protest is justified, and get frustrated when they’re told they can’t throw objects, trespass or weaponize fireworks. It is understandable why people would feel frustrated. ICE is doing all kinds of unlawful things: detaining Native Americans, skulking around elementary schools, parking on firehouse aprons (I truly hope a hook and ladder drives over one of their vehicles). So with ICE acting with seeming impunity, you do have to understand why protesters would wonder why the law only applies when they’re breaking it.

But the cure for ICE’s lawlessness is not the people’s lawlessness. As mayor Frey has repeatedly reminded us, chaos is what Trump wants.

Frey pointed out that the Minneapolis Police Department has only 600 officers to the thousands of ICE agents who’ve been sent here. But it’s not just the MPD. The Star Tribune is reporting that ICE agents outnumber all of the metro area’s forces combined.

So the mayor is not lying when he says we’ve been put in an impossible situation. But activists do have a choice. We can choose to protest in a way that gets the message across but that shows we’re the peaceful ones, or we can meet violence with our own and trigger martial law.

The scary part is there may be some people who don’t care about military rule. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements was written in 1951 by Eric Hoffer, who argued that there are some people who will go from one holy cause to the next, as long as being part of a movement gives them an escape from an unwanted self or an unfulfilling life.

In the book, Hoffer writes,

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.”

There may be people who’d welcome martial law, or anything else that would give them a holy cause to rail against indefinitely. But triggering martial law, and causing everyone to suffer, is immoral.

Some might argue that it’s pointless to tell people how to protest because the far left is full of anarchists who want violence. That may be true to a certain extent. But I do not believe that, at any given time, the only people on the streets are anarchists. And if a leader were to step up and guide the protesters in a new way — to link arms, or engage in other forms of peaceful disobedience — those who want violence would be left on the fringes, and easier for law enforcement to deal with.

When I was a senior at Sarah Lawrence, I took a course on the psychology of inhumanity; a study of the Holocaust from a psychological perspective. Our professor, Marvin Frankl, said, “When you call the Nazi monsters, you’re letting people off the hook.”

The same applies to ICE and people throwing fireworks. To treat anyone as irredeemably violent is to stand in the way of justice. To refuse to say anything because you think there’s no point in reminding people not to throw fireworks is to be complicit. Sometimes you have to speak up even when you think no one will listen.

And I absolutely do not buy that no one will listen. Are there unreachable people on the streets who only want violence? Yes. But some, if not most, are likely to simply be misguided kids. And failing to guide them in the right direction because you’d rather throw up your hands, or because you believe everything is just as long as your side does it, is abrogating your responsibility to the young.

My message is mainly for the radical chic, the people who live comfortable lives while whining about the mayor’s very reasonable request for lawful protest. You don’t actually want the city to burn down. You adopt these views because you like the way they look on you, but you also love the way the sunlight streams through your living room window as you sip espresso and work remotely. You don’t actually want a bottle rocket sailing through your door and lighting your oriental rug on fire.

So would it kill you to stop wrapping yourself in radicalism long enough to back the mayor and say, “let’s put the projectiles down and link arms”? Make it easier for cops to arrest rogue actors and harder for Trump to paint us all with the same broad brush.

Just after I wrote a first draft of this, I learned that an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant group plans to gather downtown on Saturday and march on Cedar Riverside, where many Somalis live. Neighborhood leaders have asked that people stay away from Cedar Riverside, downtown and the University of Minnesota campus. They want these far-right agitators to be met with empty streets.

I hope to God that people follow this directive.

Halfway through “The 60s,” Michael says he knows a dozen guys like Kenny: “They all love humanity except face to face.” By the end of the film, Kenny is strung out and out of ideas.

Loving humanity face to face means not escalating violence. It also means not remaining silent. You can say, “the far left won’t listen so why bother speaking up.” But you can also say “ICE is not going to listen, so why bother speaking up?”

I reject both of those. Nonviolence may be annoying to people who’d rather lie down in front of troop trains, but real leaders know it’s the way. Someone needs to step up and suggest linking arms. I believe most will follow.

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