Places and forms of power : what are the different ways members of a society can use to protest?

I’m going to introduce to you the notion of places and forms of power.

• In politics and social science, power is the ability to influence the behavior of people. In or-

der to live together members of a community accept rules, regulations, laws. This helps to create social cohesion but can also lead to conflicts and tensions. Even when authority seems absolute, there are always counter-powers which question it, aim at limiting its ex- cesses and resist it.

• We may now wonder what are the different ways members of a society can use to protest?

• To answer this question, 3 documents :

- Peace March : thousands oppose Vietnam War

- Lost Voices (video)

- Letter to Mama (letter)

1st document : Peace March : thousands oppose Vietnam War

- coverage about the demonstrations against the US involvement in the Vietnam War

- the 1st one was in NYC with 125 000 Manhattan marchers : they were some doctors,

students, business men, teachers, housewives... They walked from Central Park to UN building where was Martin Luther King, who wanted to convince the US to stop bom- bing North Vietnam. 5 persons were arrested by the police.

- the 2nd one was in San Francisco, it was a pacific demonstration with concerts, protest songs, speeches, poems. There were about 50 000 marchers pacifists and hippies and this is the reason why there weren’t any confrontation, just short scuffles.

- In both of this demonstrations the FBI was closely watching all anti-war activities.

- This document shows that members of a society can demonstrate in the street to pro-

test against the government.

2nd document : Lost Voices

- This document is a video from the 2015 College Union Poetry Slam International. Two

students, Darius Simpson and Scout Bostley from Eastern Michigan University are per-

forming their spoken word poem : Lost Voices

- Theydenounceracialdiscriminationtellingstoriesbasedonpersonalanecdotes,memo-

ries from childhood to adulthood.

- They are singing a capella for the audience focus to the message, they wear casual

clothes, rimes don’t matter, the rhythm and the words are more important ; indeed they use anaphora such as « the first day I realized I was black » to give structure to their text, and to insist on the racial stereotypes that black people can hear in their everyday lives. Moreover they are swapping mikes, (for example the girl is speaking on the behalf of the boy while he’s mouthing her words), to show that everybody is concerned by those is- sues.

- However their message is that no one can really speak on the behalf of other people. We have to take our responsibilities and speak for ourselves.

- I have chosen

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