These days, it seems like anywhere you turn, people are taking to the streets to protest in hopes of creating meaningful change. From the “No Kings” protest in 2025 to the continuous nationwide ICE Out protests, it seems as though protests are how people are emotionally responding to the injustices we see happening before our own eyes. Yet to me, advocating strictly for peaceful protest is a reflection of white supremacy. It sounds like the calm and preferable option, but in reality, it works like a leash on the people who are hurting the most. It asks our community, when harmed, to not just control our feelings, but to comfort the people in power, too.
I say this as a Latino-American living in the United States. My community, along with other minorities, has been told that if we just do it the right way, speak the right way, and advocate for ourselves the right way, they will treat us fairly. We have come legally, we have worked and contributed to the economy, and we have suppressed our feelings. Yet, we are still treated as aliens from another planet, unworthy of any dignity as our families are separated, and our homes are assaulted. Why can’t we live the American Dream too? At some point, I started to realize that the problem was never legal status.
Mexican migrant workers harvest crops on a California farm in 1964. (Image Source: Associated Press)
Why is it that we, the average Americans, are told to stay peaceful, and absolutely never the people with the badges, guns, and tasers? The government holds all the power and weapons. Yet, the lecture from our elected officials about keeping our contestation of their choices peaceful lands on the people holding the harmless cardboard signs and megaphones, not the ones holding tear gas and guns. Why should we listen to the government about the way we contest their policies and monopoly on violence? We are constantly expected to control ourselves and be the bigger person, even when the government shows time and time again that they don’t care if we protest peacefully, our neighbours are still getting killed.
People attended a candlelight vigil this week that was organized by health care workers and that took place at the site where Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis.
(Image Source: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Peace and peaceful protest to me absolutely has a time and place. I fully believe in the power of non-violent protest. I believe in marches, vigils, voting, sit-ins, and all forms of resistance that refuse to let the violence that we are witnessing continue. All these ways of protest matter, but it is dishonest when people advocate for peace as if it’s something only the people owe, and never reciprocated by the government.
This is not me trying to glorify or promote violence; this is about holding our government and our people to the same standard. We know firsthand that violence always lands on us first. Our community knows what it feels like to have ICE knock at your door, pull you out of your car, and exile you to a Texas detention center. We are tired of this violence. We are tired of being told that any protest of the state and government that is loud and disruptive is wrong, while the constant violence coming from our government rarely gets that same outrage from us and the world.
Why is property damage treated like an unforgivable sin, but murdering U.S. civilians in broad daylight is treated like an unfortunate footnote? That imbalance is what is wrong; we are told to be calm, patient, and respectful as we watch our neighbors be assaulted and killed every day. Enough is enough.
To me, real peace means not living in fear of leaving your house and going to school and work, without a second thought. It means schools are funded, and housing is safe for every Minnesotan, and every American. But, when peace is used by the government as a “do-not-disturb-us” tool, it becomes a weapon against all of us, from hard-working immigrants to your everyday American-born and raised citizens.
I urge us as a community to do something simple, but I’ll admit cumbersome: hold everyone to the same standard. If you tell me violence is never the answer, then say it to the government that terrorizes our city, too. Say it to the officer who abuses their power, and to the policies and laws that starve our neighbourhoods. Don’t just say it to your neighbour with a megaphone and a homemade sign.
People rally against police violence in Dallas, shortly before an attack that killed five police officers and wounded seven. (Laura Buckman/AFP-Getty Images)
Calls for “only peaceful protest” become a reflection of white supremacy when they are used to control how we express our pain and to protect the stability and comfort of those who mostly benefit from the way things are: upper-class Caucasians. I am all for peace, and you should be too, but peace cannot be peace when demanded only from those who have rarely known it.
