The Duty of the Oppressed
What’s unfair, what’s required, and what’s both
The fight for civil rights begun when humans began and someone thought “Hey, what makes me less than Johnny over there?” And as long as we have been fighting for the civil rights of different races, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and pretty much everyone who isn’t at the top of the food chain there have been different ways of fighting for these rights.
There’s the difference between Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, Gandi and Nathuram Vinayak Godse — the Indian who killed him because he believed non-violence was not the way.
For as long as I can remember — not long if we’re honest — we have categorized these groups as violent vs. non-violent. A distinction which for many of us draws the line between right and wrong.
Martin Luther King Jr. was right to lead the civil rights movement the way he did and Malcolm X is relegated to the footnotes in our history books because he was wrong.
Non-violent vs. violent, right vs. wrong. Then there is another pair — inclusive and exclusive.
What does this change?
When we categorize a method of change as inclusive vs. exclusive, things start to chip a bit, but everything is still acceptable to those of us whose history…
