Thread by @dianamackin2

Part of our beliefs, I'm afraid, include the idea that we will win hearts and minds by appealing to reason. After all, that's how we were swayed, right? Yes, it probably was. And this tactic can go a long way with the genuinely well-meaning.

It's time-consuming and requires patience in addition to tenacity. If you have a bond with the person you're trying to reach, and are credible in their eyes, it's a great way to practice activism.

But wait, because the credibility thing is big. It works best for the privileged, for those who occupy positions of respect and power in a community. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was a minister, a respectable position widely recognized even by white people;

it gave him an in, some instant credibility. He was also fairly class-advantaged (middle class).

In comparison, how privileged was Malcolm X, the ex-con, however brilliant? It took both men to foment cultural upheaval enough to create some lasting and meaningful change. Either one alone would likely not have succeeded -- that's a well-recognized truism, from my reading.

It took Malcolm's militancy, and the rising numbers and power of the Black Panther Party, to ensure anything changed. And while King was in favor of non-violence (possibly decreasingly so over time), BOTH men were killed by the power structure's minions.

The non-violent preacher and the Black Panther were both murdered.

The lesson that feminism took from this was that it was WAR.

The feminist peace movement focused on non-violent activism (which King got through Gandhi's work, as I understand it, where Gandhi had learned it from the suffragists). Lesbian separatism pulled energies from men's institutions, including marriage.

And a fair-sized chunk of feminism entertained the idea of militancy, in varied forms. They had (we had) a solid basis in our feminist past: much of what women did to gain the right to vote was illegal. It also took an incredibly long time.

Much of the activism was non-violent. Suspecting that mainstream medicine was telling lies about women (and weight) an awesome fat activist infiltrated a Cali institution's medschool library and more-accurately interpreted the data. And women in the US and the UK protested

... nuclear weapon proliferation, with their bodies as necessary. The fat rights movement and the anti-nuclear and anti-war movements had accomplishments, for sure, but nothing like the free breakfast program that continues after the US government was shamed by the successes

... of the Panther breakfast program! Or the changes in laws.

Granted, the new Jim Crow has reduced (or obliterated) rights for Black people in the US -- but there has been little militancy (allowed in the news) since the days of Malcolm and Martin.

None of the successes, though, came about because nice and well-meaning people needed persuaded, and agreed to change.

It takes a variety of tactics to wreak real and meaningful cultural change.

Those tactics arise from where we are positioned in the hierarchy -- please understand this! Let's pull together as we can, minimize the public trashing of active feminists, and move to persuasion if we don't like what we see among us.

WE are the people who will be moved by reason and care! But that also means being aware of the entitlement in your assumptions about the "right" way to do things.

This is all generalities.

In the Posie and Julia case, time will tell, and analysis will vary, even then. In the meantime we might want to ponder a beloved saying among activists: the value in speaking truth to power.