Absence Of Hostility Between The Races Is Not The Same As Peace

JerryGirleyI'm hearing a lot of talk about the need for peace. I am all for that. I love peace and prefer it to confrontation any day. That said, I am mindful of what Dr. King said about peace when his detractors criticized him for encouraging African Americans in the south to rise up and protest against racial oppression. He said the absence of open hostility between the races is not the same thing as peace. He further stated that the absence of justice coupled with the absence of open hostility is nothing more than a negative peace. Negative peace is fragile and it is deceiving.

It only takes the slightest agitation to unsettle it. Such is the state of America. Has there ever been a true peace among the races in America, as Dr. King defined it. Some that are calling for peace and calm really want the mere maintenance of the appearance of peace. Many in the majority community are not willing to do the very difficult work that is required to usher in genuine peace.

If we want real peace there must be real justice, not the mere window dressing that America has engaged in periodically, to assuage the mounting political and social frustrations of a long oppressed people. The time is up for political window dressing. We need a final solution to the racial oppression that plagued our fathers, our forefathers and that now plague our sons and daughters. If we want a final solution to this problem we must demand it. Frederick Douglas informed us, "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

The demand must come from us because the government has never and will never come to us because it has a sudden bout of moral conviction. We the oppressed must make the demand. As an attorney I have a lot of people visit my office to tell me their stories about how they have been wronged. At the end of their venting I ask them a simple question, What do you want? What are you hoping to accomplish? We are feeling as though something must be said and that something must be done in the face of such egregious injustice. Something will be done. The question squarely before us is not what the government will do but what will we do ? What do we want, or as Frederick Douglas would say it, what is our demand?