2A — Tuesday, January 16, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the 
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Race and Ethnicity Distribution of Undergraduate Students

Fall 2016

17,630 students 
identified as White
 3,931 students 
identified as Asian 
American 

2,061 students 
identified as 
International

1,495 students 
identified as 
Hispanic

1,255 students 

identified as African 

American

national anthem before football 
games last season, for example, 
is extremely polarizing. Yet, 
he has ignited a discussion 
about race that most Americans 
would have preferred to not 

discuss. Like King and many 
other leaders of the civil rights 
movement, Kaepernick faces 
negative 
consequences 
for 

taking a stand. Despite having 
been villainized and losing his 
job, he is unapologetically a 
force for justice. History will 
remember his sacrifice.

King believed in building 

bridges instead of walls, but 
he didn’t turn his back to 
injustice just to appease the 
attitudes of moderates. And, if 
he were alive today, he would 
probably be one of the most 
vocal critics of the current 
administration and, frankly, 
the nation’s blatant regression 
on the issue of race. President 

Barack Obama’s historic 2008 
presidential victory was seen 
as a breakthrough in the state 
of America’s race relations, a 
sign that most Americans were 
finally over the idea of skin 
color. 

how hard it may be for someone 
to be physically or emotionally 
present in those spaces, which 
aren’t always the most welcoming.

As 
a 
Black 
woman 
who 

practices Islam — and yes in 
that order from my most to least 
salient identity — I never feel 
comfortable at the front lines of 

protest. I feel like I’m expected to 
act a certain to correctly portray 
my identities. Advocates love to 
talk about the burden of labor and 
how the oppressed shouldn’t have 
to explain how they’re oppressed 
to their oppressors but then still 
expect them to participate in 
the labor of protesting. I used to 
not consider myself an advocate 
because I never attended protests. 
I felt more emotionally drained 
than uplifted by the thought of 
the masses participating in the 

same activity. I would rather write 
down how I feel than yell it in a 
march.

I think we’ve forgotten about 

the less flashy forms of advocacy. 
We are in the age of instant 
gratification. If it’s not headlining 
the news, gone viral or trending 
on social media, we don’t know it’s 
happening. We take movements 
and turn them into convenient 
hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter 
only for them to be repurposed and 
their meaning stripped away into 

something like #AllLivesMatter. 
Once it’s out of the spotlight 
we forget about it. Without a 
documentary here and a movie 
there, we wouldn’t know that Flint 
still doesn’t have clean water along 
with 32 other cities across the U.S.

We 
volunteer, 
which 
is 

great, 
then 
post 
a 
picture 

to 
validate 
our 
labor. 
 

When I first wrote this piece, it 

wasn’t in response to any event in 
particular. Rather, I was motivated 
to write after listening to the 
dialogue happening on campus and 
around the country about activism 
during the Trump era. All too often, 
people — our classmates, neighbors, 
friends and family — eschew 
justice in favor of the status quo. 
As the article goes on to mention, 
Martin Luther King Jr. rejected this 
stance. In fact, the reverend went 
on to claim that the people “who 
constantly say, ‘I agree with you in 
the goal you seek, but I cannot agree 
with your methods of direct action’” 
(not the Klansmen, nor the “alt-
right” nor the Donald Trumps of 
the world) pose the greatest threat 
to racial equality. As we begin the 
50th year since Martin Luther King 
Jr.’s assassination, and celebrate 
his life 89 years after his birth, it’s 
crucial to look back and reflect on 

his words. Though our modern-day 
struggles don’t manifest exactly the 
same as the ones that faced King, 
their root causes are the same: 
hate, racism and bigotry. It’s our 
job to do what we can to fight these 
forces, even if the fight makes us 
uncomfortable. We cannot let the 
Trumps and the Richard Spencers 
of the world prevail, but the only 
way to effectively stop them is if 
everyone takes a stand. 

Imagine this: It’s a Sunday 

afternoon and you’re on your way 
home for the evening. To your 
annoyance, the route you normally 
take has more traffic than normal. 
Initially, the bumper-to-bumper 
backup is inching along, but it 
quickly grinds to a complete halt. 
After a while, you turn on the 
radio to find out what’s causing 
the holdup. Surprisingly, you 
learn it’s not due to an accident 
or overturned truck; it’s due to a 
protest organized against racism 
and discrimination. How would 
you respond?

Now, how would your response 

change if this were on March 
7, 1965, and the road you were 
stuck on was Route 80, just 
outside of Selma, Ala.? The day 
is “Bloody Sunday,” and activist 
John Lewis is marching with 
about 600 protesters from Selma 
to Montgomery. Regardless of 
how you claim to feel about the 
civil rights movement, chances 
are that your current reaction to 
anti-racism demonstrations (from 
Black Lives Matter protests to 
NFL players taking a knee during 
the national anthem) would be 
identical to how you would have 
reacted during the civil rights 
movement 50 years ago.

Don’t believe me? According 

to a Gallup poll conducted in 
October of 1964, almost three-
fourths of Americans believed 
civil rights demonstrators should 
stop protesting, despite many of 
their demands being unfulfilled. 
Additionally, a New York Times poll 
conducted during the same year 

found that a majority of white 
New Yorkers felt civil rights 
protesters had gone too far, 
with common complaints about 
“negroes receiving ‘everything 
on a silver platter’” and the 
growth of perceived “reverse 
discrimination” against whites. 
These sentiments are still cited 
by Americans who denounce 
efforts 
to 
create 
a 
more 

inclusive country, from critics 
of kneeling to people against 
affirmative action. Ironically, 
while these people probably 
would have been against the 
civil rights movement had they 
been alive at the time, they are 
the first to wistfully compare 
today’s 
demonstrations 
to 

demonstrations of the past, as 
if their attitudes would be any 
different.

In addition to those who are 

seemingly against any form of 
protest, there are even more 
people who support the cause 
of racial equality but do little to 
support it. In fact, they’re often 
more critical of the methods 
demonstrators use to achieve 
equality than about the issues 
being protested in the first 

place. Usually, you can spot this 
happening when someone wishes 
protesters used less obstructive 
means. While they may explicitly 
say something along the lines of 
“I get where they’re coming from, 
I just wish they didn’t protest like 
that,” what they’re really saying 
is “I acknowledge an issue exists, 
but I’m not willing to do anything 
to solve it because it doesn’t affect 
me.” As a result, demonstrators 
are forced to use “obstructive” 
methods 
— 
blocking 
roads, 

holding sit-ins and interrupting 
the status quo — to ensure 
people actually listen to them. 
Otherwise, their message would 
likely be ignored by the apathetic 
masses who prioritize their day-
to-day convenience above the 
issues 
affecting 
marginalized 

communities.

Martin 
Luther 
King 
Jr. 

famously wrote about this in his 
1963 “Letter from a Birmingham 
Jail.” In the essay, King argued 
moderates who sit idly by and 
allow 
oppression 
to 
happen 

(despite being ostensibly against 
racism and discrimination), are 
more dangerous than Klansmen. 
Those “more devoted to ‘order’ 
than to justice; who (prefer) 
a negative peace which is the 
absence of tension to a positive 
peace which is the presence of 
justice; who constantly say, ‘I agree 
with you in the goal you seek, but I 
cannot agree with your methods of 
direct action’” present the greatest 
danger to those seeking equality. 
This is just as true today as it was 
half a century ago.

All of this begs an important 

question: 
How 
will 
you 
be 

remembered by history? While it 
was acceptable to be against the 
civil rights movement in the 1960s, 
pictures 
of 
counterprotesters 

standing outside of integrated 
schools 
draw 
disgust 
today. 

Anybody who currently thinks the 
civil rights activists were out of line 
is rightfully seen as bigoted — and 
I firmly believe 50 years from now, 
critics of today’s campaigns for 
racial equality will be seen in the 
same light. Now is your chance to 
stand on the right side of history, 
even if you have to stand alone.

LEGACY
From Page 1A

ADVOCACY
From Page 1A

Your place in the long arc of history

JASON ROWLAND
MiC Managing Editor

TUESDAY:
By Design 

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MichiganDaily.com

Read more at 
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