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From a NY Times column by Thomas J. Sugrue, a professor of history and social and cultural analysis and author.
He argues we do NOT need more civil discourse.
(Rev. martin Luther) "King aimed some of his harshest words toward advocates of civility, whose concerns aligned with the hand-wringing of many of today’s politicians and pundits. From his Birmingham jail cell, King wrote: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’.” King knew that whites’ insistence on civility usually stymied civil rights."
Full column HERE.
A very good, and true, commentary on this subject. "Thoughts and prayers" are not enough. Sometimes action must be taken.
ReplyDeleteMy own experiences are the Columbia University protests of 1967 and the Gallaudet University protests in 1988. Both involved deliberate actions that shook up the "powers that be."