Silence is a form of acceptance. A person did not feel the issues were important enough to stand up and say that the oppressor was wrong. Elie Wielsel says, that when a person is indifferent to another’s pain, he dehumanizes the person and “reduces them to and abstract.” In the southern part of America during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the “good” people stood on the sideline and watched people be treated cruelly, people be killed and women be raped, they are not “good” people at all they are accessories to the crimes. These people did not turn there head when they saw someone stealing a candy bar. People were being beaten to death in the street. In this case silence is not golden it is the color of blood on a killers hand.
Elie Weisel says, “Indifference always benefits the aggressor.” Not confronting an issue perpetuates and magnifies the problem. If racists are beating black people to death in the streets of Alabama and it goes unpunished, then racists all over the south feel they can get away with the same crime. That is why Dr. King believed “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He felt it was his duty to fight prejudice and not allow it to be overlooked.
People have forgotten how to be responsible members of the human race. My Psychology professor once told me you have a better chance of being helped, with a stalled car, on the freeway late at night when there are hardly any cars on the road, than in rush hour traffic. His explanation for this is that when there are many people on the freeway everyone expects the next person to help, when it is only one person they feel a sense of necessity to help you. This is how people react to injustice on a smaller scale. Indifferent people expect the governor or the president to do something about injustice and neglecting there own power. They feel that if the people in charge are not doing anything about injustice what can they do. The people in power believe that if there were an important problem, then the people in the community would show some form of disapproval. The outcome is nothing is done; everybody is waiting for someone else to get the bandwagon started so they can hop aboard.
Humans are self-consumed creature; they usually will not intervene in an issue that does not involve them. Even the great humanitarian Dr. King’s only explanation for helping people was because we are “tied together in a single garment of destiny”, which simple means that you are helping yourself when you help another person. Do you believe the only reason that we help people is because in some way it benefits us emotionally or physically? Have you ever notice when a person does something nice they bring up there own virtues, “I did it out of the kindness of my heart” who are they trying to convince me or themselves?
You make many well thought out points. The silence we often see in society is "acceptance" and a very sad to observe. Those that allow oppression to occur and remain silent are just as guilty as the oppressors. This silence makes the oppressors feel that they are doing right because no one will speak up. In today's world, many have become so self centered that they have lost touch with the compassion that every human has. We assume that the next person will take responsibility for speaking out and it is a failure of society that we do not see the truth. Silence is as deadly as murder and a act against humanity. Some would say that they have enough worries in their own lives but this is nothing more than an excuse for ones inaction. If we all choose to speak out even once in a while, we would live in a much happier and more civilized place. Do not let silence become the norm and encourage others to speak as well.
ReplyDeleteI like how you brought in the words of your psychology professor, it really adds to what you are saying. I completely agree with you when you say “Silence is a form of acceptance.” Indeed it certainly is, and the sooner we all wake up and do something about it the better. We as individuals in a society need to be vocal in order to allow our beliefs to be heard. Silence only creates more inaction, and inaction to further injustices. Dr. King’s statement “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” is extremely deep in its meaning. When we allow whites to put down blacks, what’s next? Should we then allow the rich to target the poor, the Government the Citizen? When we lay in silence, not only do we allow the atrocity or injustice to continue, we also leave the back door open, where the freedoms we denied to one are under threat of being stripped away from us. This is why we must not allow these things to happen to one of us, because the trend could quickly spread like wildfire and we could be the next target. We need to open up to the world, speak up for injustices, and keep our eyes open. If you don’t, when you are the target of an injustice, how would you feel if everyone stood by and watched?
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