Seasoned demonstrators taught newcomers that national flags signal conservative politics in protests

Evidence

A couple punks, skinny kids with dirty clothes and much darker skin, scampered over to tell them that this was not quite right. They launched into a friendly explanation, the kind that is meant to let the new arrivals know how things worked around here. They had the energy of the nice guys in the mosh pit, who tell the obvious newcomers how to have fun and stay safe (elbows down, don’t push smaller people around, pick up anyone that falls). “Empty nationalism at a protest is dangerous,” one of the punks said. “We have to focus on concrete political objectives.” They explained, very patiently, that some protesters might see the Brazilian flag as a conservative symbol or tantamount to fascism, since in the context of a demonstration (rather than a football game), it was wrong to insist that everyone in the country agrees on everything. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 408

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the class/cultural stratification of mass protest movements and to moral panic and insurgent policing of symbols discussed elsewhere in this protest-decade reading. — connects to: Changes in demonstration form reflect deeper shifts in social movement politics — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1231; New protest arrivals draped themselves in national football insignia unfamiliar to veteran demonstrators — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 407; Protest form can detach from its political content as movements get appropriated — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 556

Broader Connections

• New protest arrivals draped themselves in national football insignia unfamiliar to veteran demonstrators #complicates (0.85) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 407
• Changes in demonstration form reflect deeper shifts in social movement politics #expands (0.74) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1231
• Protest form can detach from its political content as movements get appropriated #complicates (0.73) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 556