The unbearable privilege of protesting stay-at-home orders

Of the many astonishing developments to come from COVID-19, the angry assemblies of Americans in many states requesting that the government reopen the country rank high. While the idea of organizing mass protests amid a highly contagious virus to demand that people continue to congregate en masse seems laughably ridiculous, it indicates a far more nefarious disconnect between who is and who isn’t allowed to protest in this country.

There has been a clear divide between who has participated in these protests against COVID-19-related shutdowns and who hasn’t. There is also a stark divide between how protestors have acted and the response to their actions. Images from protests all over the nation show dozens, if not hundreds, of white demonstrators emboldened by little more than entitlement.

On April 30, in Lansing, Michigan, a group of armed, white protesters assembled in front of a government building, pushing, shoving, and screaming at police officers without an ounce of concern for their safety. The police allowed protestors, even some who were armed, to enter the government building. Some protestors tried to enter the floor of the legislative chamber. Jim Ananich, a representative from Flint, Michigan, told The Guardian, “This protest wasn’t about the stay-at-home order, it was an opportunity for a small group of folks – very few of whom were engaging in social distancing or wearing masks – to show off their swastika posters, confederate flags, nooses hanging from cars, and signs calling for murder.” Yet the police made only one arrest.

As Stephen Moore, a member of both the White House council to reopen the country and a coalition of conservative leaders and activists seeking to push government officials to relax stay-at-home orders, called those protesting stay at home orders “the modern-day Rosa Parks.” He also told CBS News that “the right has become more the Rosa Parks of the world than the left is.” The audacity required to compare those who want to go to the beach and get haircuts to a woman protesting a national practice of segregation that dictated black people were subhuman in comparison to their white peers is confounding. However, that is the privilege of incoherent protest: It’s easy to claim heroism when there isn’t actually a villain.

Compare these events to protests organized by people of color in recent years. About four years ago, Native Americans organized the Standing Rock demonstrations to speak out in defense of protecting their sacred lands and against the contamination of their water supply. The sheer violence done unto them should still be etched in the minds of the public, from being met with guard dogs, to being hit with rubber bullets, mace, tear gas, and water canons. We live in a country in which multiple white gunmen can storm a State House with next to no ramifications, but the protection of sacred land is met with virulent devastation. As U.S. congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, in opposition to the protest following the events in Michigan, “Think about how harshly #BlackLivesMatter & #AbolishICE activists were debased, called rioters, & treated as a threat to society. Now watch & examine how this MAGA-armed rushing of a state legislature is treated. This is for those who still think racial privilege is a fantasy.”

Privilege is at the root of this protest not just in that the white protestors can expect an unmitigated ability to express their First Amendment rights, but also because it takes a certain amount of privilege to feel oppressed by the denial of certain nonessential services. Examine the signs held at these rallies that have read things like “I WANT A HAIRCUT!” At a rally in San Diego, a man held up a sign that read, “Let My People Golf!” while at another rally in front of a Baskin Robbins in Huntington Beach, California, a woman held up a sign that read, “GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.” These protests are not about freedom, but about being denied the privilege of service. When privileged people are denied the luxuries they expect — for their safety, no less — they identify as oppressed. Conversely, those who are actually oppressed, those who protect their cultural lands, their families, or their bodies from police brutality, are met with tear gas and bullets.

Scientists and doctors agree that stay-at-home orders are our best bet against stemming the spread of the coronavirus, which is still killing thousands of Americans every day. Yet some see these lifesaving measures as an infringement on their rights. The simple truth is that a haircut never has and never will be a necessity. It’s asinine to see these demonstrations as anything other than well-attended parades of entitlement that do little more than increase everyone’s chances of getting infected. To compare these people to Rosa Parks is, at best, idiotic. The sooner people differentiate persecution from frustration, the sooner these rallies can be accurately classified as mild assemblies of narcissism and privilege.