[This is a note posted to the Coffee Party Facebook page by CP member Mark Levine. I am reposting it here with his permission so that it can reach a broader audience. I hope all CP members can read this and take it to heart]
There has been a steady stream of comments to the effect that you cannot be civil with some people, because they (insert favorite reason or unreason).... With Monday's observance, I end up reading them after having listened to Dr. King. I heard your feelings, here's mine.
This is an excerpt from a letter by Abraham Lincoln written in 1863:
"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonnet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they strove to hinder it."
100 years later, King, standing in front of a statue of Lincoln, made his famous "I have a dream" speech. In part, he said:
"... We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote...."
100 years, and he was still dealing with malignant hearts. But not with fixed bayonnets. With words, with peace, with civility, recommending love for the segregationists. He spoke to supporters who had faced beatings, fire hoses, police dogs, even bullets and recalled those who had been murdered. Without profanity, name-calling, or appeals to prejudice or even party. And he told them:
"...we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline...."
And so here we are, another half century on, and you tell me that you cannot be civil. So I have to ask you: what are you up against that is so much worse than what he was up against?
You may decide to blame your political opponents, but I am going to see you do it every time and every time I am going to place the blame squarely on your own cowardice.
