ok.
was there any specific reason they picked the performance to disrupt, though? were there specific authorities present?
generally, patrons of the arts tend to be rather liberal - and i mean liberal in the actual meaning of the word. even the self-identified conservatives in the audience would mostly fit any reasonable definition of the word "liberal" - and especially when it comes to the issue of race. so, it's kind of singing to the choir, if you see what i'm saying.
...unless they were targeting somebody, specifically, that they knew was in attendance. that's a different action.
if this is just a pr stunt...it's just a pr stunt. they'll get their ten minutes, think they're raising serious awareness and then be otherwise ignored.
if they're following somebody around, on the other hand, and there's going to be more of this, there's a chance it could get to that person.
Jimmy
I think they just saw an orchestral performance as something "white". And they've been twisted by the media into divisive action. If anyone sees this as brave or inspiring, they should do some research into real protest. This is a real-life extension of so-called 'hashtag activists'. In this age social protests last all of 15 minutes.
deathtokoalas
see, that's a big problem but i would recognize it as a corollary of the current dominance of identity politics on the so-called "left". it's really bogging things down very badly. i mean, if they were expecting to walk in there and find a bunch of racist big money white supremacist dixiecrats, i hope they were sorely disappointed. if that's what they were looking for, in st. louis, i'd suggest a strip club, not a place for the arts. despite maybe being a little irritated by the interruption, i'd suspect most people in the audience probably agree with them that black lives aren't worthless. the perception that a symphony is a place to find people that will disagree is strange and worrying, as it implies a lack of communication and understanding across a stratifying class divide.
my interpretation of socialism looks at symphonic music as something everybody should have the time and education to be able to enjoy, not something that should be vilified as a class marker. i'm not sure where, on the left, that kind of attitude would be coming from. like so much of what passes as leftism nowadays, that strikes me as something characteristic of the reactionary right.
on the other hand, nobody should be surprised about a return to gilded era economics producing a return to a gilded-era type of politics.
history doesn't end.
but if you repeat the same mistakes, you will produce the same consequences.
virgil
yeah they associate classical music with rich white people
deathtokoalas
again: that seems outlandish, but i've spent enough time with protest groups to realize that it's actually probably true. it's very sad, but it's reflective of our collective decision to stop funding public education.
Ishmael
It wasn't a PR stunt, it was a protest done to raise awareness and support for the cause. Protests have been held all across the city. Parks, government buildings, police stations, concerts, highways, sporting events and now the symphony. Most of the protesters at the symphony were white. The organizer is white. Yet many Youtube commenters claim they were racist for disturbing the nice people who paid money to see they symphony. There is a serious problem in America if somebody's right to watch a symphony in peace is more important that someone's right to live or right to due process from the legal system. The protest's organizers have never said or suggested they picked the symphony because "rich white people" would be there as +virgil starkwell and +Jimmy Kelly suggest. That's something the "conservatives" have made up to discredit the protest.
The protesters are saying "Black Lives Matter" not b/c white lives don't, but because if you look at statistics or the recently rash of videos showing unarmed black men being killed by police, or simply browse the comments left on this video, it's not clear that society believes this is true. If I say that McDonald's is delicious, does that mean I think Burger King is repulsive? Absolutely not. Then why should anybody believe that someone saying Black Lives Matter is insinuating that other lives don't? It's a foolish argument that people make to take our attention off the actual issue at hand. Don't fall into that trap.
deathtokoalas
well, there's not much danger i'm going to fall into that trap. that's not really what i'm concerned about.
i'm just wondering if you could build a causal relationship for me between disrupting a symphony and having your concerns taken seriously. was there somebody in attendance that you were hoping to gain the attention of? because, otherwise, i don't really grasp the tactic very well.
lednerg
The organizer and another woman had previously done a small protest at a Cardinals game, holding a couple signs, and they were shouted down by angry fans. The St Louis Symphony seemed to be a more welcoming venue and they were correct.
Getting my info from http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_d3d4e0b0-4c48-11e4-bc55-275aa0a96f33.html
deathtokoalas
it's not really a question of trying to play off "listening rights" (and i guess there's a personal property rights argument hidden in there somewhere) against "the right to exist". that's the same kind of dumb argument as "black matters--->white doesn't".
it's more a question as to determining the relevancy of the target.
i have to be honest that i don't really see the relevancy of the target, and that the association of symphonies with white upper class music suggestion is the only thing that really does make sense to me - other than there not being much thought put into it at all.
i mean, while they were protesting the audience of the symphony, they could have been doing something more productive, right? that's obvious, right? so, why weren't they?
again: my time spent in protest movements suggests there is something to the idea of the symphony being targeted due to class and race concerns. it's not "racist", i'm not going to throw that around, it's more....stupid.
in the interview, she basically states she's going after the white upper class of st. louis, as if she honestly thinks that a bunch of doctors and engineers have any ability to stop police brutality, probably by all thinking positively together really hard. hey, did you hear about that experiment at the university that doesn't actually exist where a bunch of people thought positive thoughts and it actually happened?
stupidity is the right word. utter naivete; no systemic analysis. these people have no power. it doesn't matter if they know what's going on or not, you have to get to the systems of power. it's just disturbing the peace.
the civil rights movement wasn't half successful because it disrupted symphonies.
the civil rights movement was half successful because of open carry laws that had black people walking around the streets with assault rifles, which scared the fuck out of white people and got the feds to step in before another civil war happened.
here's an idea: instead of disrupting symphonies, why don't you interrupt a city hall meeting? crash a legislature? blockade a police station?
because you'd get arrested. exactly. the moment you do anything that disrupts any actual power, you end up in jail. so, instead, you go and waste your time pissing people off, thinking it's some kind of compromise.
but it's not a compromise. it's really simply a waste of time. it's counterproductive in the way that you're perceived. and, instead of grasping that, you further your isolation by attacking the dominant perspective.
it's not fucked up that people reacted badly. it was a stupid thing to do, and you're rightfully being called out for it. get it, learn from it, stop doing it, move on.
it's really remarkable. you do an action to try and influence public opinion, public opinion attacks you for it and then you say you're outraged by the public's reaction. if you really cared so much about the public opinion, you'd take the time to alter your behaviour when the public rejects your tactics. you'd actually do things that you think would influence the public opinion, rather than just irk people. yet, you don't. so, really, why don't you just tie yourself to a battering ram and slam yourself against a concrete wall over and over again, then? you might start to like it after a while, it just takes some time to get used to.
in order for anything to change on this continent, the most important realization that must be come to is that there is no democracy on this continent. the more you feed into this lie, the more you divide each other in ways that makes you easier to conquer, the more you uphold the status quo.
i don't expect you to get it, i've been over this ad nauseum, i know i'm talking to the wall.
like, honestly.
1. convince wealthy people racism is bad.
2. ?????
3. equality
that's basically what's going on.
Ishmael
Protesters have interrupted city hall meetings. They've also interrupted a city council meeting. They've marched in Clayton, which is where the St. Louis County government is located. They've also protested outside a police station...and Ferguson city hall.
The civil rights movement would not have been successful without white supporters (in both the public and in political office), without thousands marching in unity, without sit-ins, without the show of force you mentioned, etc. The movement would've been an abysmal failure.and black Americans would've continued to be attacked, killed, lynched, hung, fed to ravenous dogs, if it was just black Americans with guns. Hell, in Ferguson, the government showed they are willing to bring in the military to protect THE POLICE. When police were the aggressors in nearly every confrontation. So in order to foster any change, the protests have to come in several forms.
This can't simply a black/white issue. It's an issue for all Americans. Allow one group to have their rights and freedoms trampled, and it won't be very long before it expands to other groups. So yes, wealthy people need to be told that racism is bad b/c some are so comfortable in their own bubbles that they don't know what's going on. The protests are about awareness. Sure, plenty of irked and aggravated by the protests. But society rarely changes when everybody is comfortable and cozy.
deathtokoalas
that's right, and they'll bomb you from the sky if the military asks for it, too - whether people are aware of it or not. the way they think is that the more aware you are of the threat of being bombed, the more frightened you'll be of it. you probably know this, you're just not willing to come to terms with it. there were complex power relations in the civil rights struggle, but the reality is that white solidarity had almost nothing to do with it - unless you're talking about white solidarity in the north. dixiecrats, and whatnot.
there's no future in "building awareness" through the kinds of actions that isolate and marginalize your position, and you'd agree that this is obvious if you weren't so blinded by reactionary right-wing self-righteousness. i have to go back to the previous point, in pointing out that it's really curious how you can state that
1) The protests are about awareness.
2) Sure, plenty of irked and aggravated by the protests.
without realizing that you're contradicting yourself.
but, again, i've been through this enough to know there's no use....
