SS essay

To first define the terms, protests are defined to be a statement or action that expresses
disapproval or objection to something, most of the time against certain policies that the
government has implemented. An example of said policies would be the PMD ban put in place
by the Singaporean government which has faced countless amounts of backlash. Protests can
come in the form of public displays, rallies, marches, sit ins and many other different ways.
Interest articulation is ways that individuals and groups can express their needs and demands to
to their government through many different forms including protests. The effectiveness will be
judged by whether the pros of protests, shown by the success of past protests, is larger than the
cons of protests.

Firstly, protests are an effective form of interest articulation because it can effectively draw
attention to a cause or concern as long as there are sufficiently large enough numbers of people
protesting. If authorities understand and pick up on the concerns, rapid action can be taken to
remedy the concern almost immediately. In some cases where protests are borderline violent,
the government are more likely to concede to the protesters’ wishes in the hopes that no
damage to public property or humans would be done. As long as a large number of people
gather together to protests with valid concerns, the government are sure to give their attention.
A successful example that occurred not too long ago is the George Floyd protests. The George
Floyd protests began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, after the killing of George Floyd who was
an african American man who asphyxiated when now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek
Chauvin pinned him down with a knee on his neck for more than 8 minutes. The protests quickly
spread across the nation, with hundreds of thousands of people in all 50 states taking to the
streets in opposition to Floyd’s death, police brutality and institutional racism at large. As of June
3, the protests have continued nightly with people from all walks of life gathering for a common
cause. This also prompted the Black Lives Matter movement, which had everyone posting the
familiar black poster on their social media pages. Almost every single celebrity who had an
online presence was posting these PNGs with massive effect. In contrary to past attempts at
bringing attention to police brutality, such as NWA’s entire career and especially their hit song “F
the police”, this Black Lives Matter movement and its protests were much more successful in
getting the right message across and getting what they were protesting for. Since then, police
departments all over the state were enforcing their officers to not let anything like that happen
ever again.

However, protests can also be a bad form of interest articulation and may end up in negative
confrontations and effects on the protesters. Protests that might come off the wrong way may
trigger backlash from the government or opposing groups that hamper their cause instead of
aiding it. We can use the same example to support this statement as well. Despite the aftermath
of the BLM movement and its protests, by the end of June 3, 12 deaths were resulted and
widespread incidents of police brutality as well as looting and the deployment of nearly 20,000
national guard troops in 24 states. Some protestors were extremely violent which hampered
their cause and ended up in some dead when the police officers decided to fight back out of
anger. Instead of protesting without violence, some protesters did the opposite. Instead of
dealing with the situation with peace as the main goal, the police did the opposite and fought
back under the influence of their emotions.

Finally, I believe that the positive benefits from the BLM movement and protests override the
negatives from it. If any police officer were to be caught with such an act nowadays, best
believe he will be slandered by the entire world and maybe even the justice system. Because of
the entire world fighting for this cause, no police officer would dare to cross their boundaries
again. I believe that a few people’s death in exchange for a nationwide change in how police
officers treat people is a completely wonderful trade. Thus, i believe that protests are an
effective form of interest articulation.