Fighting Social Injustice the Right Way

I posted part of this in another thread, but think we need an actual discussion on this specifically, cause I think it's a very important thing that's been lost in the 21st century.

We've lost our best tools to fighting social injustice the tools that Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. used so effectively. The power of truly peaceful protesting and marches. See if you can truly protest and march peacefully, if you can bring to light the crimes against you without hate, vitriol and crazy lawsuits, while those against you continue spewing hate and doing their crimes, you both give them no ammunition to use against you, while at the same time causing them to hang themselves and make their bigotry and hatred as clear as day for all to see. You make the hate and bigotry undeniable, and the wrongs unarguable.

When we make a big deal out of every petty grievance, when we throw mud as much as our enemies do, when we seek vengeance over justice, we come out the other side looking just as bad as they are. It's this I argue against, I have to, not enough of us are, and we need to be seen, because if we're not, then that dirty muddy side of us is all anyone knows. The crazy lawsuits, the vitriol, and our oversensitivity to even the smallest slight is all anyone knows. If I don't make a stand against those on our side, who often without realizing they are, harm our side, even if trying to do right, then it means no one is working to counter the damage that is done. It means no one sees those of us who care about what's just and right above and beyond all else, that not all of us are petty, and that some of us see the bigger picture. That when our side does wrong, that when laws and rules unjustly work in our favor, that some of us care, that it's not just us verses them, that we truly do care about what's right whether it's crimes one way or the other. It's necessary we police our own, it's the only way we don't all come out hypocrites pretending our own # doesn't stink.

We need more people doing this arguing against social injustice that works in our favor. We need more emphasis on peace, we need to shout down on those of us who act with hate and bitterness in their hearts. We need to fight for true justice, forgo vengeance, and speak against unjust laws.

There are also those who are government plants, those who are bigots that, like the wolf in sheep's clothing hide amongst us, making us look as bad as they possibly can, for their own reasons. This is another reason these things must be shouted down. People will only hear which of our voices are the loudest, and if we're not making it very clear the majority of us don't support unjust laws, aren't petty and aren't out for blood, then since those who are, are already as loud as they can be, that's the impression we all give.

I've heard that, we have a right to our anger, and it's true, we do, but there's a difference between anger and rage. Rage is uncontrolled, chaotic, wild, it lashes out, causing us to harm both others and ourselves. We need to be careful to never let anger turn to rage, every time we do, we harm ourselves. Anger can be tempered, it can be controlled, one can use anger so long as they keep it in check, so long as they keep the big picture in mind and use anger to motivate rather than allowing it to blind you.

I'm not perfect, I get angry, I give into rage, and when I do I harm myself and others, I do wrong. For the most part I maintain my composure, but sometimes I too give in. I'm not expecting perfection, only for people to try, to not become the villain who had the best of intentions. For example in the thread on Food Stamps, I allowed myself to get angry, in bitterness and anger I let someone get to me and I lashed out as I let my anger give in to rage. I had my post removed by a moderator and I got a warning I rightfully deserved. I'm human I'm an emotional creature, but that's not the point, the point is trying to be better.

It's only by being better, more pure than the one who wrongs you, that the majority is forced to recognize how bad your opposition really is. I'm not Christian, but "Turn the other cheek" is a statement with real power.

In the short term it means allowing harm to come to you, it means not fighting back, it means running when necessary, or even just taking the beating. If truly committed it might even mean dying without ever raising a finger to defend yourself. On the long term, however, it's a major blow to the enemy, it's another undeniable nail in their coffin. It's easy to respond to hate with hate in kind, to violence with violence in kind, it's hard to allow hate to wash over you, to accept violence without fighting the storm. Nothing that's right, nothing that truly works is ever easy.

We need to take back the peaceful protest, we need to fight unjust laws, and we need to focus on the true crimes against us. The pettiness has to stop, the vitriol has to stop, the passive acceptance of unjust laws that work in our favor HAS... TO... STOP...!!!

Thank you all for taking the time to listen to me, I think this is really important, it's something that's been bothering me for a long time. The way we've been fighting for social justice has been wrong for far too long, and it pains me greatly.

a reply to: Puppylove

Those methods have been made ever more difficult to pull off by constant changes to the way civil rights law works in the west, which have been made over the last thirty years. The methods of peaceful protest are not in and of themselves effective measures anymore, and this I say for the following reasons:

1) in order to gather enough people together to make a protest viable and impactful, one has to use social media. Any mention of a protest via social media will result in mobilisation of police, and the inevitable stifling of ones rights, that even being within the gaze of a police officer normally entails.

2) agent provocateurs are easily inserted into large groups, and their activities are very useful for making it appear as if protestors have caused a riot, rather than what normally happens, which is the police needing an excuse, any excuse to get people off the streets, and prevent them from securing their right to express themselves.

3) the right to peaceful assembly is not what it ought to be, in that most countries require advanced notification of any intent to assemble in large and peaceful numbers, which will result in police turning up to hamper the entirely free expression of the gathered throng. This has only gotten worse since the War on Terror began, despite the fact that the reason we are fighting such a thing, is to protect our rights.

4) things need fixing today, not tomorrow, not next week, and not over a period of many years of struggle. Protest is all very well, but its effects, where it has any at all, are SLOW. That is unacceptable, and no delay must be tolerated, if real and lasting change is going to be made to anything worth working on these days, because of the changes to people's rights, and the way the law deals with people who protest.

5) People have been protesting peacefully against the testing, and keeping of nuclear weapons, virtually since they came into public awareness. They still exist though, and this is evidence that protest is not, at this point in history, a properly effective tool for change. A million plus people in London, and yet more all over the western world protested against the invasion of Iraq during the Bush/Blair love in. It did NOTHING to change the outcome.

I think the mind from which your thinking on this issue comes, is a beautiful place, and I would consider anyone allowed to visit the fair isle of your mind to be a lucky traveler indeed! However, things are not what they were during the days of Martin Luther King, and the tactics employed during that era will simply not work in this one, which is down to the fact that governments have been aware of the power of such protest since then, and have developed strategies to confound any such attempt.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Thank you for your fair well thought out post. But it goes further than just the protest themselves, but in how we fight injustice.

The real reason our laws work so hard to punish those who discriminate, even slightly, is to keep us divided. The extreme laws do us no favors, they are our enemy. You say things need to change today, not tomorrow, but nothing works that fast. Especially not when it comes to the hearts and minds of the people.

The petty little things are hold overs from the time before. I'm LBGT and I'd be lying if I said anything other than that, we're almost there, the legal side of things are mostly won. Just a few more things are needed constitutionally. Anyone who says otherwise is being dishonest.

What's needed is to push for what final things need to be burned into the constitution, and for the extreme unjust laws to be fought. We also need to work towards eliminating those very things that restrict our ability to protest peacefully.

Though in the day of internet, protesting peacefully means more than the marches. In the modern age, it a battle of perception, where often the media is the enemy as well, promoting dissidence over peace.

Which is why, whether protesting in the street or online, we need to fight for what's right, not what's convenient or vengeful. Hate begets hate, violence begets violence, unjust laws beget unjust laws. These things need to be fought on all fronts.

We cannot use unjust laws to bring about justice. We need to fight those laws. It's vital, and we need to leave the petty fights and distraction to the wayside.

Once we get what's truly needed, the full constitutional rights and protections into the constitution, as well as just rather than unjust laws, whether you anyone else likes it or not, the rest just takes time. Scars and old wounds need to heal, the bad tissue needs to be replaced with good. Old ideas need to fade, progress needs to be allowed to occur naturally.

This is why the situation with the blacks is taking so long to heal. They hold on too hard to their anger and their bitterness, many self segregate, they promote a culture wherein the use blame and take zero responsibility for themselves. Does prejudice still exist for them? Yes, but some of it self reinforced, and no matter how much prejudice exists, we are still responsible for our own actions. Every black man who gives in and lashes out with rage is responsible for his own actions. Every person who refuses an education, who chooses to allow themselves to be sucked into gang life, who chooses to promote ignorance rather than bettering themselves is responsible for their own choices. Blame is given, not just where it's deserved, but where it is not as well. Many blacks hold hate in their heart, and with that hate, they spread more hate. Instead of allowing the scab to heal, they keep picking at it over and over again, turning into a scar that will forever mar the skin.

I think that Martin Luther King would be ashamed of much of the black community today, and I fear if things continue as they are, we will be just as bad. That we'll not recognize the real crimes, concentrate on the wrong things, never take responsibility for ourselves, and we will spend years in bitterness and hate, doing as much a disservice to ourselves as those who have done us no real wrong that we will push unjust laws, use unjust laws, that we will fight hate with hate and excessive vengeance rather than justice. That like the black community we will fall into the same obsessive need to dig at the same scab because things just aren't healing fast enough and we hate how the scab feels and looks.

The facts are, we as a society are becoming more progressive, this is in spite of not due to the petty disputes. It's because of the big ones that stand out above the rest, it's because of the ones no rational person can argue against. Yet we talk like things haven't improved.

Some things just need to heal, some things just need to be let go to allow that healing to happen.

Stop picking at the scabs, and instead worry about the knife wounds that really matter is all I'm saying.

Martin Luther Kings Christms Sermon 1967:

www.ecoflourish.com...

So, if you're seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there? they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

It's one of the strangest things that all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. The conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order. If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitler contended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace.

What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.

Great stuff, we all need to read that, thanks for posting it.

I definitely see your points, and I also agree somewhat with TrueBrit. I think we need to use multiple methods in fighting social injustice.

Peaceful protesting can still be done successfully - there was some peaceful protesting without incident during the whole "hands up don't shoot" situation. But by itself, I don't think peaceful protesting will resolve the problem.

Social media can be a very useful tool - if messages go viral, they can be very powerful in influencing a great number of people. BUT, the message needs to be positive and uplifting, not negative and filled with hate.

Organized boycotts of offending businesses, organizations, states, etc. is also very powerful. Note, I do NOT mean violence or vicious threats of violence. Peaceful boycotts work wonders, and are totally legal and constitutional. Look at what happened in Indiana, with several large businesses, sports teams, celebrities, etc. threatening to basically boycott the whole state. It made a difference.

There is still the old-fashioned "write your congressman" tool. Not always effective, but in combination with everything else, it doesn't hurt. Town meetings are a good venue for standing up for your cause, especially if you are standing with a group.

I think valid lawsuits are critical. During the struggle to allow interracial marriage, the case of Loving vs Virginia (which went all the way to the Supreme Court) really made the difference. Roe v Wade is another example. You have to have a lawsuit to get the Supreme Court involved, and having them rule in your favor will change everything.

I agree with you that violence and hateful rhetoric is not the answer. There are many tools and methods available, it just takes coordination and determination and perseverance to make them all work together.

a reply to: Puppylove I don't know if you happen to be on, and I know this sounds stalkerish, but I really wanted to site this as a source for a school paper, but I need the author's last name. If you feel comfortable giving me your last name that would be much appreciated, if not I understand thanks anyway

a reply to: asdfghjk

Whitenight

a reply to: Puppylove

thanks so much!!