Protests and Another Look at the Race Question

Someone once commented on my t-shirt, which read “One Planet, One People, Please”
“Didn’t Hitler say that?”, they asked.
“No, he didn’t say please.”



In the mid-90’s, there were a large number of communities that were attempting to deal with the race issue in the United States. At that time, I was working with a number of those communities, tracking the progress they were making. An interesting fact came to light, the implications of which I didn’t realize until years later.

The communities could be roughly divided into 2 categories: those that were “fighting racism” and those that were “promoting race unity”. It seemed that those that were trying to fight racism were reaching an impasse. In fact, in those communities, things seemed to be getting worse. The organizers of these activities may have said that their events were a success, but all reasonable criteria demonstrated that the situation in the community was deteriorating. The members of those communities were also able to cite more and more examples of racism getting further out of control.

In those other communities where they were focussed on promoting race unity, it seemed that conditions were improving. Although there was very little, or in some cases no notable, increase in measurable phenomena, the feeling in the community was noticeably improved.

Why?

By attempting to fight racism, we are continually looking for examples of racism to fight. No matter what sort of progress we may make in helping people change mindsets, there will always be things that we, or others, may find offensive. Even the most innocent of phrases may appear, to one who is looking for an example of racism, as a racist comment.

By focussing our attention on race unity, however, we are then continually looking for examples of unity in our community. No matter how slight our progress, or how far we still need to go, we are encouraged by the progress we have already made.

When a baby is just beginning to learn to walk, we don’t criticize them for not being able to run a marathon. We encourage the progress they have already made. Similarly, we must always look to encouraging each other in our efforts, trusting in the sincerity of the intentions.


Protests

Humanity's crying need will not be met by a struggle among competing ambitions or by protest against one or another of the countless wrongs afflicting a desperate age. It calls, rather, for a fundamental change of consciousness, for a wholehearted embrace of Bahá'u'lláh's teaching that the time has come when each human being on earth must learn to accept responsibility for the welfare of the entire human family.

(The Universal House of Justice, 2001 May 24)

It is worth pointing out that protests come in 2 different forms: protesting against an action or an idea, and gathering together to encourage people to do something.

Sit-ins

An example of the first might be the Woolworth’s Sit-ins in the middle of the last century. The company had an unfortunate policy of not allowing any “people of colour” to eat at their restaurants in their stores. It was another example of the sad state of race relations at the time, and much attention was drawn to the injustice of it. Sit-ins were organized at which people would sit at the counter in these restaurants, but not order anything. They were forbidden from eating, but there was nothing to prohibit them from taking a seat, thereby preventing a paying customer from being able to order. These sit-ins were a major step in the race unity movement, and forced a major company to re-think and even change its customer policy. In the end, they were forced to recognize the absurdity of their own stance, and they opened up their counters to people of all colours. The “coloured people” in the States were able to eat at the counters in Woolworth’s. The only problem with this was that no one really wanted to eat there anyways.

MLK’s Dream

An example of the second type of protest would be Martin Luther King, Jr’s march on Washington, at which he gave his justly famous “I have a dream” speech. In that speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave us a dream towards which we can work.

But how many of us recall what that dream is?

It was a dream, “that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”, that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”, that “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”. It was not a dream of what to avoid, but a dream of what can be built.

That is part of its power. It gives us a goal to reach.


Protests that tell us what to avoid generally have the same effect as trying to remove the darkness from a room. The other protests, those that help us learn what we can actually do, help illumine the world around us.