this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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wholesomememes
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I respect Daryl Davis enormously and I think in many ways he shows us the best of who we can be.
At the same time, the criticism I heard from (I believe) the person who was an NAACP executive was that Mr. Davis works against racism in retail mode, while organizations like the NAACP work in wholesale mode. It’s good to reach out a hand and change a mind, but these movements - the racists, misogynists, and LGBT-phobic - are recruiting thousands and tens of thousands. They can and should be humanized, but the real battles are being fought in the courts, the halls of government, and the media. I admire him and think he deserves to be elevated and we’d all be the better for it, but there’s a very real fight to be had in addition to reaching out a hand and doing a one at a time conversion.
Sorry, but this is a strange criticism. Does anyone say Daryl's way is the only way? You can do all of that at the same time, just someone like Daryl can do this much better than fight people in court. This just happens to get more press since it is an individual who does good against a terrible organisation. Organisations vs organisations in court just does not sound as interesting.
I understands that it sounds strange, and it’s probably wrong to frame it as “criticism,” but that’s the way it was framed in the interview. This was done as part of a very positive and complementary biography of Mr. Davis.
What ultimately broke the back of the Klan as an organization was the DOJ who went after them specifically, the transformation of their organization in the common American perception as being anti-American rather than as patriots, and the fines applied to both the organizations and individuals that made it impossible for them to continue as organizations. I’m all for anything that gets people to hang up their hoods, and honestly I love when justice can be done by reforming people, but there’s a reason you go after Nazis with artillery and organizations like the Klan with ones like the NAACP and ADL.
Absolutely. Both kinds of action can and should happen in parallel.