On Violence, Nonviolence, & "No Kings"
“Into this atmosphere of totalizing violence, they introduced a counter-violence that communicated their willingness to universalize the disposability of life, if no other options were available.” - Tip of the Spear
This weekend, I found myself immersed in Tip of the Spear by Orisanmi Burton. But between chapters, I scrolled through social media and saw image after image from the “No Kings” protests unfolding across the country. One thing struck me more than anything else—nearly every post proudly described the protests as “peaceful.” On any other weekend, I might have scrolled past those comments. But reading Tip of the Spear made that repeated insistence feel different—like a stark contrast to the questions I’ve been turning over in my mind for some time, even if I’ve struggled to fully articulate them.
These questions are about violence—or more precisely, what the state defines as violence—and its role in our collective struggle for liberation.
The organizers of the “No Kings” events explicitly state a commitment to nonviolence as a core principle. Yet as those “peaceful protest” images kept appearing, I thought of Huey P. Newton, who said in 1967:
“We have been brainwashed to believe that we are powerless and that there is nothing we can do for ourselves to bring about a speedy liberation for our people. We have been taught that we must please our oppressors…and therefore we must confine our tactics to categories calculated not to disturb the sleep of our tormentors.”
These words call out how we’ve been conditioned to disavow any resistance that disrupts the state’s sense of order—resistance that refuses submission. In Tip of the Spear, Orisanmi Burton confronts this directly. He distinguishes sharply between the violence used by the state to maintain control and the counterviolence enacted by those who were incarcerated as acts of survival and self-determination. He writes:
“[Prisons] are state strategies of race war, class war, colonization and counterinsurgency. But they are also domains of militant contestation, where captive populations reject these white supremacist systems of power and invent zones of autonomy, freedom, and liberation.”
This does not glorify violence. Instead, it situates violence as a political response to state-sanctioned annihilation—a refusal to quietly submit to dehumanization.
The historical context of Tip of the Spear differs in many ways from our current moment. But this analysis compels us to think more critically about how resistance is framed—especially resistance that the state labels as “violent.” It pushes us to ask—what does it mean to call a protest peaceful in a society where the violence of the state is omnipresent? What does it mean to commit to peace when our very survival is already contested?
We’re often presented with the idea of resistance as either violent or nonviolent. But that binary is a fiction. We do not have to choose between violence and nonviolence, but rather, between state-sanctioned violence and community self-defense.
Prisons, police, family separation, and forced institutionalization are not neutral systems— they are mechanisms of daily, normalized violence. What we need to question is not whether to reject violence altogether, but rather whose violence is being normalized and whose resistance is being criminalized?
If we recognize that the state is violence, we must also accept that resisting it may require disruption—even actions the state deems “violent.” Not because we value violence, but because confronting systems that cage, kill, and disappear people demands more than symbolic protest.
When people damage property, disrupt legislative hearings, occupy buildings, or confront police, these actions are quickly branded as “violent.” But this framing serves the state—it diverts attention from the violence these actions seek to interrupt. It rebrands protest as criminality while erasing the everyday brutality of state power. We cannot accept narratives that cast resistance—especially resistance by oppressed people—as inherently violent, while granting the state’s violence moral legitimacy.
We also need to thoughtfully consider what is conveyed by “nonviolence.” Huey P. Newton warned us that:
“The power structure inflicts pain and brutality upon the peoples then provides controlled outlets for the pain in ways least likely to upset them or interfere with the process of exploitation.”
Are we mistaking those “controlled outlets” for true resistance? When we march inside police-sanctioned protest zones, do we demonstrate our commitment to justice—or our complicity with the very forces we claim to oppose?
I want to be clear that I am not advocating violence as a goal or default strategy. When violence becomes the goal, we become the state. But we must also recognize that ending state violence may require resistance that disrupts, that refuses submission, and that will inevitably be labeled “violent.”
Liberation struggles throughout history have always involved resistance. And that resistance has sometimes been violent—not because this was a strategic preference, but because all other avenues were closed. These were the acts of survival in the face of genocide, colonization, and state repression.
What if our freedom dreams demand that we refuse the state's definition of peace? What if, under conditions of unrelenting oppression, refusal itself becomes our only form of resistance?
I will never condemn those who resist with force when they are met with systems designed to destroy them. To hold this position is not to glorify violence—it is to reframe how we understand it. It is to name the state as the primary source of violence. It is to place our abolitionist dreams in the long lineage of insurgent struggle for liberation.
If we are serious about building a world free from violence, we cannot cling to moral purity or respectability. We must be willing to confront and dismantle the systems that uphold violence—systems that will not fall without forceful challenge.
Tip of the Spear makes one thing clear for me—the violence of rebellion is not morally equivalent to the violence of domination. Resistance—especially resistance from those made disposable—is not criminal. It is ethical. It is necessary. It is the refusal to die quietly.
In solidarity always, Alan
I hope you’ll join us on Wednesday, June 25, at 6:00 PM Eastern for zoom discussion of Tip of the Spear. This month we’re very honored to be joined by Orisanmi Burton.
Such a great piece and you articulated so well what I could not form into words.