This is a good point. Most protest is about priority. It isn't going to change many peoples' minds. But it will make them prioritize thinking and talking about, and maybe even voting for, your issue.
Michelangelo said "the sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Effective protest is similar. It isn't about creating a new view. It's about uncovering, and refining, instincts that were already there.
As such, a core part of effective protest is problem projection. That is, forcing people who don't have a problem to empathize with those who do. Protest should target those who have it good. To get them to empathize with those who don't. (Community organizing is about getting people who share a problem to prioritize it together.)
Excluding people will only lose support, instead they should've pushed for more social media post on explaining in an objective way why police brutality and racism exist, and how it will impact us (not only African American but POC as well as innocent civilians).
Change happens at the edges, and sadly people deal more and more in extremes + absolutes. There's not much room for nuance.
That depends on the size of the movement. "Support us or lose all your friends" is a valid tactic that has been successfully used since long before written history. Requiring members to perform an action (unfriend people, post harsh messages, etc.) also induces deeper commitment (psychologically and materially) then merely someone saying they support a movement.
I'm merely pointing out that violent rioters will elicit negative responses from people who don't want society to burn down and those who stop said rioters will elicit positive responses.
We can go down the path of how much has been built by slaves, what you mean by enslaved, and how I am somehow responsible for that, especially as an immigrant from a country torn apart by American imperialism.
You are not the judge of what is an aweful human being, seriously, you’re just not that free of sin or amazing.
In your smugness you no doubt increase the wealth of other such “aweful human beings” by working for them, paying them for goods, paying taxes, etc.
This attitude is tiring and counter productive.
Unreasonable people are not a protest's priority. They are entrenched. If they're with you, you won't lose them. If they're against you, you won't win them.
Note that this bias towards the reasonable only applies at the early stages of organization. When one is building awareness, before specific policies have been mooted. Once policy fronts develop, the unreasonable play their part. They create your battering ram of a base that focusses elected leaders on ensuring your policy remains a priority.
Putting the unreasonable front and centre too early leads to each camp preaching to its choir while the masses disengage.
Contrasted with insensitive to reason.
So no, not a dog whistle.
Able to be reasoned with?
Mainstream pertains to "ideas, attitudes or activities" [1]. A protest probably wants to appeal to those who hold mainstream views. Or bring its supporters' views into the mainstream. But the whole point of the protest is something isn't mainstream that should be.
And then on the extremes are the unreasonable people. Those who will support the police regardless of any negative change, and those who will oppose the police regardless of any positive change.
It does not purport to limit those who are reasonable. The phrasing could have been used in a dog whistle which does, but this particular remark isn't it. Moreover, there is little audience for such a dog whistle in the midst of a conversation about practical ways to effect meaningful reform.
This should not be a wedge between us that impedes us from working together towards justice and peace.
Slight edit, to target reasonable people. Period. Reasonable people can hate the NYPD. But because an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers support the NYPD, the average reasonable New Yorker is likely to as well.
Speaking to the current environment, I believe there is overlap between support for the protestors' cause and the NYPD in general.
This is one of the first things criminal reform advocates in New York are taught. The police is well-funded and powerful and strong because it's popularly supported, and the political class knows that.
And no amount of protesting is likely to change that. Not in the near term. This is why "f* the police" styled slogans are discouraged. They alienate the only responsive audience: reasonable New Yorkers, who [EDIT: by virtue of most New Yorkers supporting the NYPD] likely support the NYPD in general, and have simply not prioritized your reform policy as a talking point with their friends and elected.