NYT - critical reading "White America's Age-Old, Misguided Obsession With Civility"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/opinion/civility-protest-civil-rights.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

Recent disruptive protests — from diners at Mexican restaurants in the capital calling the White House adviser Stephen Miller a fascist to protesters in Pittsburgh blocking rush-hour traffic after a police shooting of an unarmed teen — have provoked bipartisan alarm. CNN commentator David Gergen, adviser to every president from Nixon through Clinton, compared the anti-Trump resistance unfavorably to 1960s protests, saying, “The antiwar movement in Vietnam, the civil rights movement in the ’60s and early ’70s, both of those were more civil in tone — even the antiwar movement was more civil in tone, but certainly the civil rights movement, among the people who were protesting.”

But those who say that the civil rights movement prevailed because of civil dialogue misunderstand protest and political change.


As a candidate in 2016, Donald Trump used his own lack of civility to win the election.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times
This misunderstanding is widespread. Democratic leaders have lashed out at an epidemic of uncivil behavior in their own ranks. In a tweet, the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, denounced both “Trump’s daily lack of civility” and angry liberal responses “that are predictable but unacceptable.” Senator Charles Schumer described the “harassment of political opponents” as “not American.” His alternative: polite debate. “If you disagree with someone or something, stand up, make your voice heard, explain why you think they’re wrong, and why you’re right.” Democrat Cory A. Booker joined the chorus. “We’ve got to get to a point in our country where we can talk to each other, where we are all seeking a more beloved community. And some of those tactics that people are advocating for, to me, don’t reflect that spirit.”


The theme: We need a little more love, a little more King, a dollop of Gandhi. Be polite, be civil, present arguments thoughtfully and reasonably. Appeal to people’s better angels. Take the moral high ground above Trump and his supporters’ low road. Above all, don’t disrupt.

This sugarcoating of protest has a long history. During the last major skirmish in the civility wars two decades ago, when President Bill Clinton held a national conversation about race to dampen tempers about welfare reform, affirmative action, and a controversial crime bill, the Yale law professor Stephen Carter argued that civil rights protesters were “loving” and “civil in their dissent against a system willing and ready to destroy them.” King, argued Carter, “understood that uncivil dialogue serves no democratic function.”


snip really important - apologies for the paywall.

It certainly describes where I am...this playing nice, high road bullshit is...well, bullshit!

[onecaliberal]

1. All their fake bullshit while they destroy America can fuck straight off.

[MicaelS]

2. Terrific.

We have gone too far with this "When they go low, we go high" rhetoric. Call it what you want. I want someone in there who is willing to call it as bluntly as necessary. Hillary was too nice.

[4139]

3. With all 'due' respect to the author-historian who was 6 in 1968....

It was not a polite, genteel time.

[kwassa]

4. For those of us alive and participating in those protests ...

It was the real threat of violence that made King effective. The other protestors included Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panthers. Neither pledged non-violence. White America was aware of the alternative.

and violence against non-violent protestors was perpetrated in the South in the murders of civil rights workers.

edit to add the best takeaway from this post:

King aimed some of his harshest words toward advocates of civility, whose concerns aligned with the hand-wringing of many of today’s politicians and pundits. From his Birmingham jail cell, King wrote: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’.” King knew that whites’ insistence on civility usually stymied civil rights.

[0rganism]

5. when they tell us to be "civil"...

...they really want to show us up as weak and uncertain of our convictions.
here's how it works:

perhaps the saddest thing is to see Democratic leaders rolling over and playing along with this handicapped position. surely they know better? no? maybe not? is this really the best we can do?

we've been playing catch-up since 1968.

most people agree with Democratic positions on important issues, but the Republicans have used some very clever strategies to taint the Democrats as untrustworthy. one side argues policy positions, the other presents itself as strong and morally clear while spewing ad-hominem attacks. guess who wins?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. "civil rights protesters were "loving" and "civil in their dissent"

Which suppressed the rage that was festering in the communities most impacted AND...

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