Lacino Hamilton: “This is Going to Hurt: Serious challenges to the status quo will be met with panic and repression”

“But so far unfortunately, the main direction of activists today seeking racial equality has been to shrink from the dangerous implications of restructuring America’s economic systems. Too often, their focus has instead been on simpler, more comfortable ways out such as protesting, for example, for the release of a video or the arrest of a police officer.  Protest can bring awareness to a problem that is being ignored or minimized, provide people who are angry and frustrated with racial oppression an outlet to channel their energies, and even force a resignation every once in a while. But institutional patterns and practices will not change unless protesters go beyond rallying, marching, and what usually amounts to empty slogans. The function of activists is to translate protest into organized action, which has the chance to develop and to transcend immediate needs and aspirations toward a radical reconstruction of society. This is the case today, to an unprecedented extent.”