Member-only story
What is it that America fails to hear?
What we’re witnessing is not riots but an uprising
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? … It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. It has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. As long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
When Martin Luther King Jr. made this statement in his “Other America” speech over 50 years ago, it was not an attempt to justify rioting, but to explain it as a natural response to oppression by a people who have been oppressed for over 400 years. Lana Guinier from Harvard Law School echoed King when she wrote, “Poor black people are throwaway people. And we pathologize them in order to justify our disregard.” Before demonizing individuals who lash out in frustration…
