I think the issue is, the message of the peaceful protestors - for some people who don't understand the nuances of how our country operates (and some even live in this country) - is sometimes being overshadowed by the looters and rioters who don't neccesarily represent, or even care, about what the message is we are protesting for and are using this for selfish benefit and/or to vent anger, further complicated from months of lockdown from the pandemic.
Now, to be fair, most of the mass protesting lately has been peaceful and some of the early looting and insane anger and rioting has slowly taperd off.
MSM won't cover the peaceful protest. Only the violent ones, so we don't have a real grasp of what's happening out there, only their preferred version of it.
I agree, the current situation is compounded by months of lockdown.
What's going thru my head right now is 'what IS effective'? Peaceful demonstrations supposedly don't get the attention. Violent protests lead quickly to riots, which escalate and misdirect attention.
I liked the Colorado protest, where everyone just laid out on the grounds of the capital = very visual, shows large united message. It avoids the destruction of riots, but still gets the message out...but is it effective beyond that? Just spitballing, but I could see a return of the old 60's sit ins. Police and/or laws need changing? Have several hundred folks sit in public spaces that constrain (not block, but make difficult) passage or normal operation (ie, at and around the police station). It gets the same large unified peaceful message out, and effectively chokes the system (you can only hold so many folks before jails are full, courts will be swamped, etc). It says WE THE PEOPLE do not accept status quo, and your status quo will grind to a halt unless you change. THAT, to me, affects a change beyond just getting the word out. I'd expect judges would end up dismissing in such a large number of cases. If the public sits in on their state or federal congressional sessions, legislators will get the message that their citizens want a change and are watching them while they do their job of making/changing laws.
There's probably other ways, but that's all I can think of on short order that is non-destructive AND effective.