American politicians forget: disruption and disorder are the point of protests | Patrick Hubert Gaspard

I have trespassed in peaceful protest. I have shutdown government offices in civil disobedience. I have made the powerful uncomfortable. That's the point

In America, the student movement has been seriously radicalized wherever police and police brutality intervened in essentially nonviolent demonstrations: occupations of administration buildings, sit-ins, et cetera." - Hannah Arendt, observing Columbia University protests in 1968.

When you've been in the midst of a demonstration that devolves into chaos and violence, you find out in a hurry if you're able to put aside your own terror to still uphold the needs of the many and to maintain the discipline of your values. This has happened to me more than once. That tension has always been a reminder to me that democracy is a choice and that citizenship is a full-contact sport.