The tradeoffs of resistance

When we face injustice, do we protest or play it safe?

You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. Author Lauren Oliver

Without active resistance by the oppressed and their allies, none of the major shifts we have seen in society over the past centuries would have occurred, from the end of slavery to the right of women to vote. At any one moment, many struggles large and small rage on, with the number of defeats outnumbering victories. (Think Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter). Each of those struggles result in some brave, selfless individuals being imprisoned, wounded, even losing their lives. Is the sacrifice worth it? It’s a question that is difficult, if not impossible, to answer in the moment. And for the individual, it is almost always “no.” But when seen in terms of the bending toward justice of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “arc of the moral universe,” the answer is more likely to be yes.

“Change takes a long time, but it does happen,” notes Deborah Ellis, who directs NYU’s Public Interest Law Center. “Each of us who works for social change is part of the mosaic of all who work for…