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I agree that current protests are not "carefully crafted campaigns", but I think that that is largely due to the simplicity of the message: They want less polic

I agree that current protests are not "carefully crafted campaigns", but I think that that is largely due to the simplicity of the message: They want less police brutality and murders. The resulting system is not really set up to receive "sinners" or do any other quasi-religious things; it's merely a vehicle for conveying petitions for redress. I remember being a young atheist; I thought that people believed in Christian and other hateful creeds because they were misled, miseducated, etc. Now that I'm a mature Pastafarian, I know that people believe in hateful creeds because people cannot divorce their identity from their beliefs and are not willing to risk their self-image merely for the sake of being more logical or historical, let alone more moral. However, that's not why people are currently protesting; it's why people are counter-protesting, though.

atoav 6y ago
The whole thing reminds me of how the post WWII German society was in turmoil because of the student protests in the 60s. The new generations didn't feel silence and not guilting the old Nazis was the appropriate thing to do. What they did instead was going into the places where Nazis worked ("storm the institutions") themselves and started moving into official positions there. Over time they just replaced them. I am not sure how German society would look like today if nobody dared to guilt the Nazis about being Nazis after WWII, but one thing is true: guilt alone doesn't work at all. You have to provide alternatives, make them attractive, allow people to take a new role within the new that you are planning (and be it repenting sinner).