Speaking for the Sonoma County Alliance and as a community member, I strongly believe that ALL lives matter.  Oppression is one of the greatest sins in our world and has received a lot of attention this last month in America.   While the George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s wrongful death has been the subject of our recent outcry, I would offer that oppression comes in many forms including race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and political orientation.  I strongly believe that individuals and policies that support these injustices should be challenged and rectified.

It is our right as Americans to protest and speak freely.  But a peaceful protest and a riot are two very different tools with two very different outcomes.  We in Sonoma County recovering from two fires, a flood, and a pandemic need to be wise as a community about how we protest.   In Santa Rosa, downtown small businesses were vandalized and looted.  Some of these businesses were owned by minorities.  Most all of these businesses are owned by neighbors and fellow community members.   Combined with the detrimental effects of COVID-19 some may never reopen, and some employees may lose their jobs.

Victor Matheson, an economics professor, compared the recovery periods of Los Angeles after the Rodney King riots and Miami after Hurricane Andrew, which both happened in 1992.  The riots cost almost $5 billion in economic activity measured in lost sales over 10 years.  According to Mr. Matheson, “If people don’t feel safe where their businesses are, then they don’t feel a need to rebuild.”  His study concluded that while Hurricane Andrew was much more severe, causing $26.5 billion in damage, the recovery was much more swift because “investors and businesses felt more comfortable returning to Miami.”

Protests tax a community’s resources.  Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a similar sized city to Santa Rosa, required a police presence in 2016 for an anti-police brutality protest.  The estimated cost of the Baton Rouge police overtime payout was $1.6 million.  Santa Rosa’s currently estimated a $18 million budget shortfall has the potential to drain its reserves.  We as Santa Rosa citizens need to use our resources wisely.

One of the most difficult aspects of protest movements is converting their potential into real results.  In an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “How Protests Become Successful Social Movements”, authors Greg Satell and Srdja Popovic broke down the five keys to creating a successful protest:

  1. Define the change protests want to see
  2. Shift the spectrum of allies
  3. Identify the pillars of power
  4. Seek to attract, not to overpower
  5. Build a plan to survive victory

Using these principles, author Andrew DePietro points to Occupy Wall Street in 2011 as an example of an unsuccessful protest.  Occupy Wall Street had an estimated economic cost of $13 million as reported by NPR in 2011 but cannot point effectively to direct positive change resulting from the protest.  The Civil Rights March on Washington is an example of a successful protest.  The organizers, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that came together under the banner of “jobs and freedom.”  The march featuring Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech is credited with helping pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Clear definition of goals, peaceful unified movement, and dialogue with those capable of making change are all critical to a successful protest.  Simply expressing anger and outrage draws attention but fails to accomplish meaningful change.  Once violence is introduced, the movement loses credibility, harms local businesses, creates fear in the community, and incites a situation requiring years from which to recover.

My point is this:   Let’s make sure if we as a community want to spend the resources to protest that we see change instituted.  I have not experienced life with oppression.  I do believe ALL lives matter.  I have worked hard within my world to create environments of equality.  I am a local small business that was vandalized.  So I have two requests for this movement: let’s do it peacefully and make it matter.