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GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1968 5
John Cogley
Easy To Be Right, When You’re White
IN THE days following the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King,
we all heard the virtues of his
non-violent attack on social evils lauded
again and again. Most of it was
doubtlessly sincere, but some was
inspired by fear of
what might happen to
the rest of us if Negro
Americans massively
rejected Dr. King’s
philosophy. That was
one reason why many
of those who were
most critical of Dr.
King’s activities when
he was alive could not
find words kind enough for him after
he was dead.
In the light of burning cities, the
pacific approach of the King movement
looked very desirable indeed. But the
question remains, how deeply do we
Americans really believe in
non-violence?
The question became particularly
pointed in the days following Dr. King’s
death. Televiewers heard one prominent
leader after another lauding
non-violence. This was frequently
followed by clips from Vietnam, with
the usual incredible “body counts” and
scenes of how good at the violent
response we really are when we believe
our national interest is at stake.
Again, we televiewers listened to the
Mayor of Chicago as he told us that his
police has been ordered to “shoot to
kill” ghetto-arsonists and were supposed
to maim and cripple looters.
Of course, it will be said, there is all
the difference in the world between
legally authorized violence such as that
carried out by the Armed Forces and
the Chicago Police Department, on the
one hand, and the lawless outbursts that
broke out in the nations cities following
the brutal slaying of Dr. King, on the
other.
CERTAINLY THE difference is
crucial. Still, for all that I give it my
intellectual assent, I can understand the
Negro militants who claim that every
significant revolution was ultimately
dependent on the use of force for its
success, and theirs has to be too. Their
position is not weakened by the fact
that within the few years black
militancy has been on the increase,
significant progress has been made
toward insuring basic human rights for
blacks. If black America' had waited
until the conscience of white America
had been aroused, it would still be
waiting. We whites, remember, had
years and years to do something. During
those years the slums to which we
assigned our Negro citizens grew worse;
the gap between black and white
America widened; despair- and
desperation in the ghetto increased. We
grew richer, more comfortable, more
content With ourselves.
It would be easy to be
misunderstood on this, so I should say
where I stand. I am with Dr. King. I
believe that in the long run the black
people of America stand to gain more
by non-violence than by resort to force.
I also believe that in the process they
might help civilize the rest of us, with
our unwavering trust in bombs and
bullets and mass killings.
At the same time, I am not at all sure
how I would feel if my skin were black.
I might look around me and decide that
nothing speaks quite as eloquently to
white America as force. I might turn on
television and see violence glorified and
praised. I might hear people say things
like: “The only thing the Communists
understand is force” and conclude that
perhaps that is also the only thing white
Americans understand. 1 know that I
would have to conclude that repeated
appeals to conscience, to Christian
teaching, and democratic doctrine did
not move many, whereas a show of
force has.
I DON’T KNOW what I would be
doing if I were black. Being white, I
have the luxury of indulging in
philosophical reasoning, jurisprudential
considerations, political theorizing with
these advantages, I probably can come
up with the right answers. But it is no
credit to me. Attribute such wisdom to
my white skin. It’s easy to be white in
America. It’s easy to be right when you
are white.
The genius of Dr. King was that he
was right, even though he was not
white. How many of-efs whites, were we
black, would share that wisdom? How
many of us would turn our backs on
violence? Few, I am convinced, judging
by our quick turn to the violent
solution for the other problems that
confront us.
I conclude, therefore, that the great
thing about Dr. King was that hewas, to
his credit, “un-American” in his
rejection of violence. The way to see
whether you agree or disagree is to ask
yourself: What would I do were I a
black man, with all the restrictions on
my freedom that means? Would I do
what I ask the victims of foreign
tyrannies to do - revolt? Or would I take
the road of non-violence, relying on
convincing my oppressors, civilizing
them with a realization of what it is to
be a man? I wish I could honestly say
the latter would be my position, were 1
black, but I don’t think it would be.
That kind of wisdom took a Martin
Luther King.
Pope Tells Scholars
Use Modern Resources
9
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope
Paul VI has urged biblical
scholars to utilize “all the
resources furnished by modem
techniques—in the literary
historical and archeological
domains.”
Speaking to Old Testament
scholars from 25 nations and all
major Christian religions, he
declared that their work is “of
the greatest worth for bringing
back the very highest values into
modem society.”
He referred especially to
“what is at the keystone of the
entire religious edifice and of
humankind: the divine
transcendence.”
His audience of 150 Catholic,
Jewish, Orthodox and Protestant
scholars had been participating in
the fifth International Congress
of Old Testament Scholars. The
papal audience was given on the
final day (April 19 of the five-day
congress, which met in Rome’s
Biblical Institute under the
chairmanship of the Institute’s
rector, Father Rodrick
Mackenzie, S.J.
The Pope, speaking in French,
pointed out that the “three great
families, Jewish, Protestant and
Catholic,” hold the Old
Testament “in equally high
honor.”
He continued, “They can then
study and venerate these holy
books together. We say more:
they can pray over the same
texts. And what prayer is more
deeply religious, more universal
in its object, more moving in its
accents than that of the Psalms?”
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The Catholic Church, he said,
“intends to be neither the last
nor the least active” in the study
of the Old Testament.
“Contrary to certain
assertions which have been often
repeated during recent centuries,
the Church has always paid the
liveliest attention to Holy Writ.
We hope, -dear sirs, that the
schedule of your learned work
leaves you leisure for a brief visit
to the Vatican Library. There
you can see, by the abundance of
the codices and of the editions of
the Bible, the care the Church
has, throughout the centuries,
shown for this incomparable
book, which it has always
considered to be the privileged
source of divine revelation.”
Referring to a frequently
noted tendency in today’s world
toward desacralization and
secularization, the Pope said:
“The problem of God’s presence
and action in the world poses
itself for certain persons in new
terms, sometimes unexpected,
often baffling and paradoxical.
“In this upheaval of ideas and
of interpretations, your
specialization leads you to be, in
some sort, witnesses and heralds
of traditional values, and of ...
what is like the keystone of the
entire religious edifice and of
mankind: the divine
transcendance.”
BETTY
LONGLEY,
FLORIST
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