This is kind of a racy topic, and is probably going to upset some people. So understand that I’m just floating it out as something to think about. This is just something I’ve been considering recently, and not necessarily something I personally believe in. And I don’t mean to denigrate the contributions of anybody, blah blah blah.

Anyway, now that the pantywaists have been pacified, on to the good stuff. Have you ever taken a good hard look at why non-violent resistance is so praised in our country? The other day, I heard something on the radio about Martin Luther King, Jr. in celebration of his birthday, yadda yadda yadda. I mean, I KNOW that MLK was a great man and made all kinds of really important contributions, set a lot of great examples (see above)… but I’ve never really heard anybody talk about it in more detail than that.

Just think for a second though. Look past what you’ve been told since you were a kid. Why don’t we have a Malcolm X day? Why did MLK become this icon?

Because he was allowed to be.

What? But he railed against the establishment, championed the rights of people who were being unfairly persecuted. Don’t I know that? Absolutely, he did. I don’t deny that for a second. But he also didn’t harm infrastructure. He also didn’t advocate blowing up buildings, or fighting with cops, or assassinating rival leaders. And yes, he was a pacifist and a Christian and great. But he represented the “safe option,” and siphoned off what might otherwise have “rightfully” been a revolution into something that could be managed, and ultimately helped reinforce power structures that he struggled against. I mean, all this famous imagery we have of people standing up to police with dogs and hoses, etc. It doesn’t just show the bravery of those people. It also helps remind us of the power of the police, and drives home the point that you should never “fight back” no matter what they do.

For a bit of counterpoint though, look at what Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam said about the 1963 March on Washington (which they called the “farce of Washington”), via Wikipedia:

Malcolm watched the March on Washington critically, unable to understand why black people were excited over a demonstration “run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn’t like us when he was alive.”

It’s funny how it feels so taboo to even be bringing this up, because it goes against basically everything I’ve ever been taught or heard on the subject. I even remember in elementary school one year during “Black History Month,” we had to write acrostic poems about MLK, and mine was chosen by the teacher, and I had to read it at some kind of assembly in front of the whole school. Non-violent resistance has always been held up as this beautiful glorious ideal.

It’s really quite a complex topic though, I think. This whole idea of how does a small group contend for their rights against a larger group, when they don’t control any of the resources. I have another post about that which is worth checking out, which offers a very different reading on this topic: Jesus, Pimp-Slaps & Non-Violent Resistance.

Also, anyone who is interested in this topic also owes it to themselves and to history to go out and watch a copy of that amazing documentary which was put out about the Weather Underground. That movie blew my mind because it presented such a radically different approach to “demonstration” from what I’d ever seen portrayed in the media or the educational system. For me, it reminds me how very laughable it is on one level when people organize “protests” and they are barricaded in by police on all sides, and have to obtain a permit to even protest in the first place - because they don’t legally have the “right” to do so. As if anybody in power gives a flying shit about you staging a “die-in” or holding a clever banner and walking around chanting. Funny stuff! Now that’s what people should really spend their time being offended about, rather than me writing this post.

UPDATE!

Ran also linked me to two essays he wrote on this subject, for those interested:

1. Violence vs. Pacifism
2. Violence Unraveled