They’re afraid!
I think the health insurance companies are actually taken by surprise by the amount of people who sincerely wish them death. Maybe we will see some almost-meaningful change soon?
Basically every large successful social change has been built on violence or the threat of it. King might have been a nice speaker and a friendly face, but violence brought people to the table.
He knew it too. When Gandhi got imprisoned, his movement turned violent. If you don’t listen to the peaceful protester, you’ll get the angry rioter.
I strongly recommend a book called The Sword and The Shield, about the dual roles Malcom X and King played in the civil rights era. King very well understood the need for a credible threat of violence, and actually he grew closer to Malcolm X’s beliefs as time went on, and that is why he was killed.
At our worst moments, when all else fails, violence is the only answer and everyone, deep down, knows that.
Edit to add: washing King’s legacy via history so he appears as purely nonviolent is, I believe, a very deliberate strategy to make us easier to pacify. You’ll notice that no high school curricula (barring I’m sure some notable exceptions) have ever taught Malcolm X. Only King, and only his nonviolence! Civil rights safely defanged.
This is reminding me strongly about how the Black Panther Party was vilified and outlawed. California didn’t ban open carry for any other reason than to stop black people from being able too.
A critically important piece of our history, yes! The notion of gun control practically at all in this country actually came about because black people organized. Not only did the Black Panthers openly carry while carefully witnessing / observing law enforcement in their community, they also ran many aid programs and focused on the need for education and self-reliance.
And that had to be stopped, and it was.
Thank you for the rec! I don’t read nonfiction really but I am thinking this is a great place for me to start. That sounds fascinating
Sure thing! It was certainly eye opening, I’d stop short of calling it a page-turner myself, but I think it’s important to give myself a better education about our history than our classrooms were able to.
Also, as a sometimes-neurotic reader, in case this is useful - nonfiction especially you can just choose which bits to read if that makes a difference for ya. It’s got a flow and a narrative of course, so you’ll lose a bit that way, but I’ve had struggles with other nonfiction books and needed to just try to get to the meat and forgive myself for that, lol. Turns out it’s totally allowed, no one even says anything!
