OK, my choice of words as far as "taking" rights or progress was imprecise, but it was worth it because then you went on to make my original point for me. You said:
"When you don't have power, you're left to use that lesser power that you are afforded to be sufficiently disruptive so that people will give what you want in exchange for a lack of disruption, or you need to convince the people in power that it is in their interest positively for you to have what you want (i.e. it will help them too), or you need to convince them that it is fundamentally the right thing to do for you to have what you want."
That's pretty much what I've been saying this whole time that you've been objecting to. You can try to convince people it’s the right thing to do, you can try to appeal to mutual interest, but sometimes it’s going to take being sufficiently disruptive to get their attention.
I’m researching a story about MLK and what he actually said and did (thanks for the writing prompt). Here’s an excerpt from what I have so far:
Although King’s protest tactics were intended to be non-violent, they were also often intended to be intentionally provocative. In Birmingham, “King’s intent was to provoke mass arrests and ‘create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.’” In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, King points out that “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
And as previously pointed out, he often said that things like rioting and other violence were the byproduct of being unheard (his term). “And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
This is precisely what I object to — those who are more interested in tranquility than they are in progress. I don’t condone violence or nasty rhetoric. I’d love to see more cooperative dialogue and actual working together, but those with more social power need to go first because they are overwhelming what is standing in the way of this. Telling the oppressed that they ought to be nicer is essentially telling them to get back into their place in the hierarchy and be quiet. We can suggest and encourage more partnership-oriented tactics but focusing all energy on criticizing them for being so distraught and so unheeded that they resort to unideal rhetoric is the methodology of oppression.
