I also know that the federal presence has heightened tensions and contributed its own violence—innocent protestors have been shot and jailed; food and medical tents have been disturbed.
That said, I believe the day calls for non-violence, the kind of non-violence that Martin Luther King, John Lewis, thousands of Freedom Riders, Selma Marchers, and Birmingham students used to confront Alabama State Police; angry, screaming, spitting white bystanders; and Bull Conner and his dogs. Their weapon was their cause.
Non-violence is not easy. From Gandhi’s marchers to King’s, non-violent people have risked—and sometimes given—their lives for their cause. John Lewis thought he was dead; Martin Luther King was. But their cause was not, and the most significant Civil Rights legislation since the fourteenth amendment passed because of it.
And yes, just like the bungled reconstruction period after the Civil War led to decades of Jim Crow in the South and segregation in the North, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is under assault. And although Black Lives Matter has brought attention to police abuses, there is not resolution.
And the President is determined to continue the assault and excuse the abuses.
But wait, yesterday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called Portland his “dream come true… We’ve watched the Portland movie before… The idealistic protesters in the streets overplay their hand, tolerate violent provocateurs in their midst and eventually get crushed. The good guys lose; the bad guys win.”
He’s seen it in Cairo and Hong Kong.
Today, Governor Kate Brown has provided an opening, negotiated at least some Federal withdrawal. Now it’s time for disciplined non-violence, the kind that will take a baton to the head and spray in the eyes, and hunker down to be arrested. The kind that will honor the cause.
# # #
No comments:
Post a Comment