When I think of the most iconic and effective modern reformers, I think of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Each of them accomplished something incredibly unlikely by challenging an entrenched status quo and making the change stick. They all did it – at least in part – by refusing to alienate themselves and their cause from the people they opposed. That’s a pretty neat trick.
MLK said, “Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else?” Gandhi shared a similar sentiment, “Whenever you are confronted by an opponent, conquer him with love.” Mandela? He said, “If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” Anyone else sensing a pattern here?
So, Are We Following Their Lead?
Whenever I see a “Hate Has No Home Here” sign in someone’s yard in 2019, I get the sense many people are embracing the words, but not the actual philosophy, of those three men. The point was driven home for me over Labor Day weekend, when a group held a straight pride parade in Boston. Looking at the photos of the event, it seems it was what you might guess it would be… a group primarily composed of white men with Republican leanings.
How do you think the people with whom “Hate Has No Home” responded to this event?
Boston’s mayor Marty Walsh took to Twitter to encourage Bostonians to shun the event, saying, “Let’s continue turning our backs on hatred, using our voices to continue spreading the message of love.”
His tweet seemed somewhat ironic as Alexandra Ocasio Cortez tweeted her thoughts, saying the men at the parade seemed to have trouble attracting women to their event and called it an “I-struggle-with-masculinity” parade. Was that her way of continuing to spread the message of love?
Opponents of the parade also characterized it as Alt-right… which makes sense, because when you’re busy not hating, you regularly affix negatively loaded labels to entire groups in order to discredit them. One counter-protester held up a sign that said, “Oh no! The Heteros are upsetero.” (I don’t think she wasn’t actually worried for them).
Real Change Requires a Different Approach
Here’s the thing… even if someone thinks the march is dumb as hell and laden with negative ideologies, these are real people, concerned enough by something to spend part of their Labor Day weekend marching through Boston. What they got back from a large segment of society was a clear message: Your worries are not only invalid; they are also inexcusable and evil.
Labeling, mocking and insulting people who feel alienated and compromised isn’t (blinding glimpse of the obvious coming) exactly consistent with fighting oppression. Those whose approach to battling alienation and oppression is simply alienating and oppressing a new and different group, are what they claim to be fighting, regardless of what they tell themselves.
Lifting up one group by stepping on the back of another isn’t progress, it’s retribution. What’s worse, it stokes the fires of the practices we supposedly abhor. Lasting change requires a willingness to understand your opponent’s point of view and an ability to see the valid points in an argument with which you ultimately disagree. That’s how you include your opponent in the change you seek and make that change permanent.