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Nonviolence

kinginstitute.stanford.edu

51–60 of 164 posts

Re: Nonviolence

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"All Lives Matter" redirects attention away from the specific thing "Black Lives Matter" was meant to draw attention to, which is that, if you are black specifically your chance of getting killed in an interaction with police is higher. There are other racial issues surfaced by black lives matter, as a slogan, eg, having to do with health care, real estate, etc. No one things that all lives don't matter, but the stat…

> if you are black specifically your chance of getting killed in an interaction with police is higher.

Again, not an expert. But, are we talking per police interaction, or per capita, or of all police homicides?

Pretty sure when I saw, far more unarmed white people were killed than unarmed black people per year, which per capita makes sense, right? But, isn’t total police interactions more inportant?

Re: Nonviolence

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a bad faith argument to shut down discourse about summary executions of black men in the streets of the USA. It's been about 10 days since they executed a white soccer mom who had not committed any crime, the people who were harping on about 'All lives matter' are still no where to be found. The whole time it was empty rhetoric, people who care about human life understand that sometimes there's a group in part…

[flagged]

The linked tweet

> BREAKING: The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.

That’s just CBS reporting hearsay from non first party sources in an admin that’s been caught directly lying about the events cutting local authorities out of the investigation.

> I am not expert, but I can tell you with certainty I would have expected no different outcome in my country.

Don’t know which country it is, but it sounds like a shithole country if you’d expect government agents to execute people against their own training, and accept government lies about it.

Re: Nonviolence

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

King was definitely not protesting in a rules based order, at least not one which applied to black people. Nor was Gandi.

He also died from a bullet to the head and 60 years later a statement as simple as 'black lives matter' was controversial.

> a statement as simple as 'black lives matter' was controversial.

That was never controversial. What was controversial was the unstated implication after that statement: "and people don't think they do". When your slogan is a false accusation against people in general, they aren't going to take it well. Approximately zero people in the US think black lives don't matter, so they aren't going to appreciate you coming at them with that accusation even if it is left unstated.

Re: Nonviolence

#55
post #46

In a survey of ~600 movements since 1900, it was found that those that tended to use violence more succeeded about 25% in achieving their goals, while those that used less violence succeeded over 40%: * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/civil-resistance-978... * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44096650-civil-resistanc... You also almost double your odds of success by not using violence. Further, less violen…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Iranian_prot... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025–2026_Iranian_protests

And the original Iranian protests in the late-1970s against the Shah were non-violent.

It is actually 'interesting' in that it is one of the few examples where a non-violent movement ended up with an authoritative regime after "success": it's (almost?) unique in that regard per the author. Most non-violent movements end up in a democratic system.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Invalid counter-argument: the survey in question looks all sort of movements, both those that succeeded and failed.

Re: Nonviolence

#56
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Only legitimate crazy people here would have a problem with the sentence “All lives matter.” People have a problem with the slogan “All Lives Matter”, which was made in reaction to “Black Lives Matter”. I don’t know if you are ESL if you aren’t American but the capitalization I used matters and it’s difficult to explain the context of hearing a sentence vs a slogan. That’s also before you get into people specifically…

[flagged]

Re: Nonviolence

#57

This is a good articulation of mlkjr's theology and dicipline around nonviolence, but I think its incomplete if you read it in isolation. His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay. They weren't organizing violence but they were instead making it credible that there is a world whe…

He also had a 75% disapproval rating at the time of his killing.

The violence against him, in contrast with the nonviolence stand, made it stand out.

Re: Nonviolence

#58
post #4

"Nonviolence" only works when a group is doing that, AND there is also a contingent of violent folks with the same aims. Nonviolent folks can be negotiated with. Its not permitted to negotiate with criminals/terrorists. We need both violent and nonviolent forces, but we're not permitted to say that out loud. But historically, thats what works.

Is anyone aware of a more thorough argument for why this must be the case? Is it a commonly held view? It sounds realistic, but not necessarily and immutable law, I’d like to know what thought has been given to this.

Yeah, the thorough argument is that people in power don't want people to rise up and challenge their authority.

It's absolutely not realistic. Every right we have was fought for and people died trying to get it. This is especially true in America where a fifth of the population was enslaved at inception. Nothing has never been given to us it had to be taken from abusers of power and there have always been abusers of power in this country.

I mean Trump is no different than Washington. Washington routinely ignored laws, he tried to have his lackeys go get his "property" from free states while never willing to go to court (a provision of the fugitive slave act).

John Adam's called Shays's Resistance terrorists because they had the audacity to close down courts to stop foreclosures of farms (fun fact, that was the first time since the revolution where Americans fired artillery at other Americans (and it was a paid mercenary army by Boston merchants killing over credit)).

You can go down the list, it's always been there but luckily there were always people fighting against it trying to better society against those that simply dragged us down.

Re: Nonviolence

#59

This is a good articulation of mlkjr's theology and dicipline around nonviolence, but I think its incomplete if you read it in isolation. His strategy worked because it existed alongside MANY other voices, IMO the most underrated of which is Malcolm X, that rejected this "gradualism" outright and refused endless delay. They weren't organizing violence but they were instead making it credible that there is a world whe…

[deleted]

Re: Nonviolence

#60

I have an undergraduate degree in Peace Studies, and have spent extensive time in and around conflict or post-conflict zones. Violence, particularly civil war, is utterly destructive to a society, completely tears apart the social fabric and creates wounds that never really heal. That said, when you look at America, India, both movements required the threat of violence to succeed. MLK had the Black Panthers, and whil…

I think you are confusing the BPP with some other organization. All of King’s substantive achievements were accomplished before the formation of the Black Panther’s and he died before they came to national prominence.
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