What is the Proper Place for Protest?
On the violence of decorum and respectability
In November 2023, a cellphone video began circulating online of a Palestinian woman approaching Senator Elizabeth Warren and her husband while at dinner. The woman, a constituent of Warren’s, explains that she’s a refugee from Gaza and 68 members of her family had been killed in the three weeks prior.
As she begins sharing this, Senator Warren lifts her hand in an attempt to stop the woman before she continues speaking. “I’m having dinner,” Warren seemed to say. Of course, the woman knew this. Of course, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are when you can help stop the killing. And, of course, the woman stayed.
She deliberately asks Warren how many more of her family members have to die before the Senator calls for a ceasefire. A question to which Senator Warren doesn’t have much to say. At the end of the video, the woman is approached by a waiter who tells her, “I don’t think this is the proper place for this.”
As someone who knocked on doors for Warren ahead of the Ohio Democratic primary in 2020, I can’t get this video out of my head. I keep thinking about this idea of a “proper place” to share your concerns and whether that really exists.
I used to attend a Black Baptist church in Colorado Springs. One Sunday, I walked in wearing a baseball hat. Almost immediately, an usher approached me and directed me to remove it. I knew the usher viewed my hat as disrespectful. I wanted to know what was wrong with my hat. I knew I wouldn’t get an answer, especially not one that made sense.
My hat, however, is nothing compared to the protesters who interrupted Joe Biden during his recent campaign speech at Mother Emanuel AME. In 2015, nine people were shot and killed by a white supremacist at the Black church. During Biden’s latest visit, a protester shouted, “If you really care about the lives lost here, you should honor the lives and also call for a ceasefire in Palestine.”
“Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!” the protesters yelled—only to be drowned out by chants of “Four more years!” as they were escorted out. Plenty of reactions rolled in afterward, including people saying it didn’t sit right with them that these white protesters interrupted an event at a Black church. But as someone who grew up in church and devoted a significant portion of my adult life to ministry, I ask the question: what is church if not somewhere to demand justice?
We boast of Jesus cleansing the temple and flipping the money changers’ tables when, in reality, many Christians would be alarmed if they witnessed that behavior today. They clutch their pearls at people demanding an end to the killing while pledging their allegiance to the administration funding the killing.
Four years ago, for Columbus Monthly, Scott Woods wrote about protesters demanding an end to police brutality being dragged out of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast by Columbus, Ohio police officers. As the protesters were removed, some attendees applauded. Many watched it happen. “Let’s be honest,” wrote Woods, “There isn’t a version of protest that would have been deemed appropriate by the powers that be at the King Breakfast.”
History repeated itself this year, proving Woods’ words to be true. Once again, protesters interrupted the King Breakfast and were forcibly removed by police. This time, the protesters were organizers with Palestinian Liberation Movement-JUST, Central Ohio Freedom Fund, and Ohio Youth for Climate Justice calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
As they demanded answers from Senator Sherrod Brown, Breakfast attendees, which included Columbus political and corporate leaders, organizers, labor unions, higher education staff, and community members, were heard yelling, “Go away!” and “This is not the place for that.” If an event claiming to honor Dr. King’s legacy is not the place to protest injustice, what is the right place truly?
We live in a society where comfort trumps consistency. Our elected officials believe they have a right to prioritize themselves at people's expense while claiming to represent the people. But we know there’s a difference between what they’ve said and what we see. They hide behind decorum, respectability, and “proper places” because they don’t want to engage with us unless it’s on their terms and certainly not in a way that might expose their inconsistencies or require them to be human.
Accountability feels like violence to those in power, especially when it forces them to see the violence we all see—the harm they’ve caused and the death and destruction they seek to justify in the name of diplomacy. It’s this accountability they spend their careers trying to avoid behind closed wooden doors, intern receptionists, and security officials because it puts their jobs at risk. It reminds politicians their power isn’t promised; in many cases, it’s been given to them by the people and can be taken away by the people.
I canvassed for Elizabeth Warren in 2020 because I believed she listened to, learned from, and genuinely wanted to help marginalized people. I couldn’t be more wrong. While I’ve since lost my faith in United States politics, it was jarring watching Warren attempt to dismiss one of her constituents and the unfathomable number of her family members who have been killed by bombs funded by U.S. taxpayers.
It was just as troubling watching the dismissal of protesters at Mother Emanuel AME Church and Columbus’ King Breakfast. In both instances, the protesters denounced state-sanctioned violence at institutions that symbolized what violence takes from us. The protesters called for an end to mass killing at places meant to honor the lives of Black people who have been murdered.
Mia Santiago of the Columbus Freedom Coalition is dragged out of MLK Day breakfast by Columbus Police, 2020 (Columbus Alive)
Instead of being met with solidarity, the protesters were removed from the room so the events could continue as planned. But how can life go on business as usual when so many lives have been lost and when the people who claim to represent us won’t hear our cries?
“I get a breakfast cum nondenominational church service is easier to do,” wrote Woods about the King Breakfast. “But then you shouldn’t be surprised when people who don’t see pancakes as an answer to increasing brutality and systemic racism show up to protest.”
The United States is hell-bent on shielding itself behind the correct slogans and protocols. Anyone who interferes with this illusion of order is considered the enemy. There is no proper place for truth in a country that refuses to reckon with the atrocities it has committed and continues to commit.
Understanding this, I join the people in our fight for a new world instead of merely a reformed United States. We dream of a society where truth is not only welcome, but seen as necessary for ensuring everyone has what they need. A world where the truth-tellers aren’t told to leave but invited to join with other truth-tellers in building communities that are good for our heart of hearts and soul of souls.
Decorum and respectability are tools of the oppressor. Their own kind of violence. Our freedom requires something more. There is no time and place for it. Collective liberation requires our wholehearted commitment every time in every place.
