I'm teaching Robert F. Kennedy's speech, The Mindless Menace of Violence, which he delivered on the night that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, April 5th, 1968. I was born in October of that year and it is absolutely unbelievable that America is in such a similar position. This speech is 14 paragraphs long and every single paragraph is applicable right this very second. Here are paragraphs eight and nine:
"...For when you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies -- to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and to be mastered.
"We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as alien, alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear -- only a common desire to retreat from each other -- only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force."
This could have been written this morning and it would fit in perfectly. These times are depressing and scary. They are disillusioning and wrong on so many levels. Where is goodness? Where is honor? Where is RFK?
"...For when you teach a man to hate and to fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies that he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your home or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies -- to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and to be mastered.
"We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as alien, alien men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in a common effort. We learn to share only a common fear -- only a common desire to retreat from each other -- only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force."
This could have been written this morning and it would fit in perfectly. These times are depressing and scary. They are disillusioning and wrong on so many levels. Where is goodness? Where is honor? Where is RFK?
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