Listen to the Riots
“In the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his 1967 speech at Stanford University, Dr. King offered one of his most famous phrases in laying out his case for justice and equality to be offered to America’s Black population. I told my 8-year-old daughter about this quote during a bedtime discussion on the topic of what she had learned about Dr. King in her 3rd grade class this week. The definition of a mob has come up, as well, because of the January 6 insurrection. “What is the difference between a mob and a riot?” my daughter asks. A mob is the actor in a riot, I say. “Why do mobs riot?” she asks, curious, persistent, gentle, objective, innocent.
I have been thinking about this question for months now from the perspective of my comfortable home in the suburbs. I am an observer, like most of us, of the news of violent riots and protests permeating the media for the past year, while a pandemic rages. I borrow Dr. King’s words on his birthday to offer that the January 6th riot at the Capitol — just like the Black Lives Matter protests — contain something “that America has failed to hear.”
Certainly, I’m not suggesting the two groups share a motivation. The hatred and ignorance on display on January 6 in Washington, D.C., and the pain and frustration of the BLM protests — some of which became violent — have little in common at their source. But they share everything in common in their statement: the American economic and political system has abandoned a no-longer-silent majority of our fellow citizens.
What we do about it, post-election 2020, will be the responsibility of all of us — not just the protesters and rioters. We ignore these riots at our peril, my fellow suburbanites. Tucked away in our mortgaged, single-family turtle shells, bathed in blue TV light on our couches, we must try to catch a bit of the tune wafting through the night air. It sounds like pain.
It will only howl louder until we begin to offer real equity in education, opportunity and understanding. It will sound louder until we summon the will to take the money out of our political system. Instead of one vote per dollar, we need one vote per person. It will sound louder until we change the tax system back to a more pre-Reagan progressive system. It will only sound louder until we begin to regulate and decentralize the social media/tech sector’s control (or lack thereof) over our speech. Until everyone in the country is guaranteed the same healthcare benefits received by members of Congress, we better get used to that sound. It’s going to be very loud until we listen — person to person — and seek to find common ground instead of searching for a debate win.
For readers tempted to find inconsistencies or those angered by a comparison of the January 6th insurrectionists to Dr. King’s noble and courageous acolytes, please remember: arguments can’t be won by shouting a superior set of facts. It’s going to be harder than that to heal this country. We’ll need to listen. We’ll need to understand. We’ll need to find the compassion necessary to help those we disagree with and the perseverance to do so even when we’re told our help isn’t wanted.
