Bills seek to limit protesting, stifle dissent
Over the last few years, we have witnessed unprecedented amounts of protests, stemming from police use of extra-legal force against persons of African descent, here in America.
At no time in history have Americans witnessed the staggering numbers of white citizens taking to the streets in urban, suburban as well as rural communities in protest of the killing of a Black person by a white police officer as we have seen since the public execution of George Floyd last May.
To be clear, this is not to say that whites have not participated in such protests in previous decades, they have, but not to this degree. In other words, the “silent majority” is still ever-present, but it appears to be getting smaller and smaller among a group of people who were once all but mute.
It is for this reason that I believe certain lawmakers in certain states have moved to enact legislation restricting protests and demonstrations.
Such a maneuver was not prompted by the murder of George Floyd, as state legislatures all over the country have been steadfast in their quest to stifle dissent over the past five years. However, since Floyd’s murder, politicians of a certain persuasion have seemingly recommitted themselves to putting an end to public dissent as we know it.
In fact, nearly 81 anti-protests bills have been introduced this year alone, an unprecedented number. Four bills are pending in Ohio. Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota are three states where anti-protest bills have passed, neither of which has a Black population of more than eight percent. In Oklahoma, a Republican-supported bill grants immunity to motorists who happen to collide with protesters fleeing a demonstration.
One will find even more creative attempts to undercut protest in America’s heartland. Under a bill recently proposed in Minnesota, anyone convicted of a crime related to protesting and/or demonstrating is eligible to be barred from student aid, housing assistance and unemployment benefits.
And Indiana has introduced a law to make anyone convicted of rioting ineligible for state jobs and certain state and local benefits.
While such moves are disconcerting, they are not without precedent. Using America’s legal apparatus to undermine social movements and radical organizations has a long history. Perhaps the most well-known and studied example occurred in late 1960s California.
In 1967, longtime State Assemblyman Don Mulford introduced a bill that repealed a law permitting California residents (see California Penal Code, Sections 12031 and 171.c) to carry loaded firearms in public spaces so long as they were openly displayed, registered and not pointed in a threatening manner. Mulford claimed that his actions were prompted by a rise in crime.
Not true. It was a thinly veiled attempt to render the Black Panther Party’s patrols of the police ineffective.
And let us not forget the most well-known example is the rarely invoked Anti-riot Act that was passed as a rider, if you will, to the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which penalizes those who travel to organize, incite or promote a “riot.” Stricter and, dare I say, curious police practices were implemented in the decades that followed.
The right to protest lawfully is as old as the founding of the country, and any attempt to infringe on that right as guaranteed by the first amendment moves us farther and farther away from the democratic principles on which the country claims to stand and inches us closer and closer to the kind of totalitarian government we profess to abhor.
Judson L. Jeffries is professor of African American and African Studies and editor-in-chief of the “Journal of African American Studies” and “Spectrum, A Journal of Black Men.”