Peace

[Solly Mack]

1. The scary part of non-violence is you can be killed. Non-violence pisses authority figures off to no end.

I marched with Corretta Scott King and other well-known civil rights activists in Forsyth Country, Georgia (1987) and a gang of white men in a car tried to run me down. This was after the march and on my way back to my ride home. A black man, walking with a group of protesters enroute to the buses, saw what was happening and grabbed me out of the road. Literally saved my life.

Of course, regardless how you choose to protest, you can get killed when you're going against authoritarians - and angry white supremacists bow up with a quickness to what they see as a challenge to their dominance. They do tend to be cowards, though - if they know they aren't the only ones with weapons.

Still, there's an unspoken but keenly felt knowledge in non-violence (which includes civil disobedience) that you go unprotected. You go opening yourself up to the violence of others. It's expected. Relief when it doesn't happen, but you don't go thinking it can't happen because it can.

I was willing to risk it. Still am - but not everyone is. Not everyone sees the victory in it because pain and suffering, and possibly death, ain't exactly selling points.

Unfortunately, it's the images of violence directed at the peaceful that drives the point home that change has to happen. A change has to come.

It exposes the haters, the authoritarians for exactly who they are. Bullies. Cowards. Just plain bad people doing bad things.

Oh, some (and one person cheering is one too many) will cheer protesters being attacked, even killed, on national T.V./streaming on all formats - but most won't.

P.S. I'm OK with well plotted civil disobedience too.