Racialicious editor Latoya Peterson contemplates Dr. Martin Luther King’s message of nonviolence when confronted with violence. There are no easy answers, she decides.
Suggested Reading
Going to the MLK memorial dedications gave me quite a bit to think about. I struggled, a lot, with Dr. King’s messages of non violence growing up, and I am working on a piece about these different schools of thought and how they influence us. I was grateful to Xernona Clayton, for being so candid about her struggle with accepting nonviolence while studying with Dr. King, because she articulated so much of what I felt.
So imagine my surprise this morning, while checking my feeds, to see this piece from Kenyon Farrow, titled “In Defense of Brontez — and the Rest of Us Too Proud or Too Trashy to Go Down Without a Fight.” In it, Farrow describes a situation where a friend of his was subjected to homophobic comments, and what happened after the situation escalated …
Farrow is hitting the nail on the head here, and I’ll take it a step further — sometimes, walking away or taking the high road reinforces to that person that their behavior is permissible …
Read Latoya Peterson’s entire post at Racialicious.
Latoya Peterson is a hip-hop feminist, anti-racist activist and deputy editor of Fusion’s Voices section, opining on pop culture, news, video games and everything that makes life worth living.
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