There are exeptions of course, and there are also many protests I disagree with. But in general, the pattern seems to be:
people not in power asks people in power to change
the people in power can respond in various ways: listen to the demands, engage in dialogue, work for a shared solutions (aka 'negotiation'); they can ignore the protest, and wait for it to pass (willful ignorance); or they can use their position of power to suppress it, generally violently (repression)
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