A recently released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document titled “Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide”* links common protest symbols to “terrorism” — another marker in a common theme of conflating militant protest for social justice with deadly terrorist violence within the United States. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center have raised warnings about such documents, citing inadequate protections for people’s constitutional rights.
Everybody. Getting the general populace that has no interest/stake in the matter involved is literally the point of protesting. The oppressor doesn’t care if you make a racket about the boot on your neck, they’re not going to lift their foot because you asked nicely.
But if you make enough noise that everybody has an opinion on it/gets involved, now they can’t just sweep it under the rug and wait until the oppressed run out of resources to keep up the protests.
Civil Rights didn’t get passed because a bunch of people handed out pamphlets or something, they got passed because a million people ground the entire city of Washington D.C. to a halt. They got passed because a black WW2 vet trained a militia in the Bible Belt to protect black kids and their families using sandbag emplacements and machine guns to keep them from getting killed by the KKK for daring to go to white kids’ schools. They got passed because several billions worth of property was burnt to the ground across the entire nation after MLK was assassinated. Years of protests got politicians to wring their hands. A week of burning cop cars and city districts had the bills drafted, voted on, and passed.