For as long as humanity has been around, violence has been glorified. Millennia ago, personal conflicts were settled exclusively through confrontation. Today, the same concept is often true on a much larger scale. And I can’t stand it.
I am fundamentally opposed to the concept of war, and don’t believe there has ever been a human whose life I would have willingly taken. I won’t raise a fist toward someone for any reason, and I am quick to condemn all acts of violence. A few weeks ago, I was brought to tears arguing with someone who told me that bombing civilian schools and hospitals in Aleppo was an effective way to win a war. Violence pains me.
The thought first crept into my head while having a conversation with a black friend about the firebombing of a North Carolina GOP headquarters (which I am disgusted by, though I’m equally upset with the hypocrisy of the overwhelming support from white liberals): Does my whiteness make it easier for me to be so unflinchingly anti-violence?
It’s a thought that had never occurred to me before, and immediately scared me. Certainly it’s much easier to be doggedly nonviolent when it is never my body that is directly threatened. Has there ever been a time when I, a well-off straight cisgender white man, have been pushed close to the point of violence to protect my own life? Of course not.
It’s not hard to sit on the couch and watch the news of widespread riots in Ferguson, Mo., and say, “I support their fight for freedom, but there is likely a nonviolent way to protest,” when I’ve never once felt physically threatened by a police officer. My body is not in danger, so it’s hard to imagine that I would feel so compelled by the threat to someone else’s body to act violently.
But the same can’t be said for everyone. Black bodies are in legitimate danger during interactions with police. LGBT bodies across the world are under siege every day as well.
Houthis in Yemen are ignored by the government and permanently placed in perilous conditions.
When the Houthis, proudly waving their flag adorned with the words “Death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews,” rose up against the government that has destroyed their way of life, it was an easy decision for me to condemn their rebellion on the principle of nonviolence. But as someone who has never once felt oppressed by my own government, perhaps it wasn’t that simple. I can’t empathize with the Houthis, because I will never know what they are going through. I can’t empathize with black Americans, global LGBT citizens, Jews during the Holocaust or Palestinian Arabs.
It’s easy for those as privileged as myself to lecture the oppressed on the immorality of violence, but would the same be true if the roles were reversed? If I someday find myself oppressed in the same way billions around the world are, would I be flung from my dream world and forced to turn to violence to survive?
It’s also important to recognize that violent protests are invariably preceded by myriad attempts at nonviolent protest. Black Americans have been oppressed since the foundation of the country; are we really dull enough to trick ourselves into believing that there was radio silence leading up to any given violent outbreak? That the individual who shot and killed five police officers in Dallas earlier this year did so as a first response, and not because countless attempts at nonviolent reconciliation have been met by yet more bodies?
Yes, I think that my nonviolent disposition is a good ideal. However, as a privileged person, it’s significantly easier to operate in an ideal world than reality. And that reality, unfortunately, is that violence is, at times, probably a necessary evil. It has been historically true that, at times, the ultimate ends justify the gruesome means.
I may never come to terms with the troubling reality that violence will always exist. That the human race is too volatile to ever come together as one and be at peace is a scary proposition. So I will likely continue to oppose violence at all costs, as I always have. But the realization that I may be unfairly basking in the privilege afforded me at birth has shocked me to my core. I think that nonviolence is good, and that we should all strive to avoid violence if possible. But I now recognize that, as a humongously privileged person, I must learn to accept violence as an unavoidable consequence of oppression, something that I’ve simply been too blind to notice until now.
Thomas is a junior majoring in African cultural studies and currently serves as the co-sports editor at The Daily Cardinal. Do you think that violence has a place in our modern society? Let us know at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
