alt Hacker News> King vs. Malcolm
Popular history idolizes Dr. King, but without the stick of Malcolm X, King would have been cast aside. Only with both did the movement succeed. An ahistorical false dichotomy. Nonviolence wasn't simply some magic bullet that was magically better than force, it was a political tool that seemed nicer compared to the alternative of force.
> [R]iots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. [...] But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities [...]. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. [...] [A] riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
- Dr. MLK.
> India in relation to nonviolence
The Indian case is arguably one of the best cases for violence against a colonizing force. Ghandi brought eyes of the common people towards India and created internal pressures, and additionally functioned as a unifying figure, but without indian revolutionaries nothing would have happened.
Replies
> Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
I'm on board with the general mindset of this, but in recent years and especially since 2020, I've become less and less convinced that it's actually true. We have seen people effectively rioting in opposition to social justice and progress. There are for instance people who sincerely believe that by being required to get a vaccine they are just as oppressed as a Black person in the 1960s, or even as oppressed as a slave.
They are incorrect. But they believe they are correct, and social justice and progress won't alleviate their misunderstanding nor their willingness to advocate on its behalf.
> without the stick of Malcolm X, King would have been cast aside
This is very much a supposition. A credible one. But not settled history.
> Nonviolence wasn't simply some magic bullet that was magically better than force, it was a political tool that seemed nicer compared to the alternative of force
Fair enough. And perhaps showing a group of people movitated enough to credibly threaten violence demonstrates their potency as a political bloc. But the value is in showing organisation. Not in the violence per se.
Levying violence as a political tool a dangerous game. If that rhetoric turned to action, the civil-rights movement would have been destroyed. By popular command.