As long as we turn our face and allow injustice to exist we are not living up to the call of being loving citizens. If we just say, "Well I am not mistreating anybody," but fail to see that by not doing anything, and allowing the injustice to spread, we might as well be the person who caused the injustice in the first place. The silence of the good is appalling. There is no such thing as a good spectator in the game of justice. You are either on the team for justice or injustice. The spectators are merely taking up room on the sidelines.
This class has often been unsettling for me because I don't want to be a spectator, I want to fight for justice, but I don't know where to start. I have seen so much inequality in our reading that I want to help. In what ever way God chooses to use me. I want to stop "riding the bench" and get into the game.
I think the points you brought up are not only what makes Kings letter beautiful, but also quite unsettling. I think too many times we as a people are lulled into the sense that "this is just the way it is, the world just works that way." and while that may seem like a logical argument to continually fall back on, further examination actually reveals it to be quite ridiculous. the world has changed, slavery has been abolished, women no longer have to stay at home to tend to their husbands ever need, can voice their political opinion, can teach economics and biology, and we half a biracial president running the highest office in the free world. I think we use the "that's the way the world has always been" argument because it it easy to do so, it requires less of us. We as a people (in we truly want to be on the side of justice) MUST change the culture of THOUGHT, because if you truly believe that the world is incapable of seeing change then not only are you being flat out lazy, you are allowing no room for that change to occur, as you said, silence, only contributes to that stagnation and if we continue with that attitude, little will get done. We need a revolution, not one of bloodshed or in a political sense, but one that overhauls our current thought process and changes it to be more proactive and maladjusted.
ReplyDeleteThat was a very inspirational blog!!! It was eye opening to see that I am not the only one that feels this way. All my life, I feel as if, I am guilty for just riding the bench! I am guilty of being silent in the eyes of injustice and being a bystander to wrong doing! As I read the letters, I had the same approach but a little different. I tried to place myself in the shoes of the suffering individuals that had to endure the trials and trabulations of the civil rights movement. I tried to anaylze the situation and determine if I will be a bystander..a bench rider..or a fighter! In my heart, I know that I want to be a fighter! But facing the reality of injustice is tough! I guess the major question is what team will I be on when the injustice truly hits home! Something that we should all think about.
ReplyDeleteYour blog was very good! I too have been a bencg rider when it comes to injustice! I also feel like I need to get off the bench and join in the fight against injustice, but for some reason I still do nothing. I was actually thinkning about it the other day how I would have acted had I been living back in the time of the civil rights movement. I know that it is easy for me to say that I would have fought for the justice and what was right. It is easy for me to say now that I would have been standing right in the middle of the fights arguing agaisnt injustice. But that was the way it was back then, and as a white American, I would have been taught against. I want to believe that I would be able to realize that injustice was wrong and fight for the rights of others, but I can not say thats the way I would have acted back then. All I know is that if things were going on now, I would be fighting for justice the way MLK did.
ReplyDeleteThat same idea has been on my mind all week. We are ALL responsible. What does that mean for us? How can we help? Shane stressed that being comfortable is dangerous. Well, I feel pretty comfortable. I'm loving college and Nashville and just life in general right now. There's so much injustice in the world, in Nashville even, that we could be working to make better...
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