Can We Be in Community with People We Disagree With?
Nonviolence, truth, and Dr. King's "beloved community"
I’m writing this on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, watching as his quotations fill up my social media feed. There are the typical ones everyone can all rally around— “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that,” and selections from “I Have a Dream.” And then there are posts with MLK’s more controversial writings titled things like “MLK Quotes You Won’t See People Posting About!”
It’s true, Americans love sanitized history where we can all cosplay that, had we been in the right place at the right time, we would’ve been on the right side of history. The MLK I learned about in my majority-white schools was Martin the dreamer, not the man who was critical of the white moderate, militarism, and capitalism. When I finally started reading his sermons for myself, I was surprised at the force behind his words. Dr. King wanted peace, but never at the expense of justice.
I’ve spent the month of January thinking about the topic of community, and Dr. King’s legacy of nonviolent action presents a fascinating tension on how to do community. The theme of “beloved community” is a thread that runs through much of King’s writing; he often emphasized that we are all interrelated, that the division of exploiter and exploited injured the humanity of both parties, albeit in different ways. In a country built on violent power, he repeatedly called for reconciliation.
In the last decade, it seems like nonviolence has become unfashionable. As violence has risen on the American right, the left wants to answer back. In the wake of Trump’s election, the left debated whether it was ethical to punch Nazis and Seattle’s liberal bubble collectively laughed as a passerby threw hot coffee on notorious scumbag Alex Jones. Contempt for those holding opposing political ideologies feels inescapable—late night used to be filled with goofy and self-deprecating humor, now it’s strings of invective against Republicans (if you’re watching broadcast or HBO) or Democrats (if you’re watching Fox News or its many copycats.)
Dr. King, like Gandhi before him, was inspired by Jesus’ ethos of “turning the other cheek.” Instead of hitting back, you offer your other cheek as a target. Reading this in 2023, this advice feels hopelessly out of date. Isn’t turning the other cheek just allowing yourself to be victimized? Is it better to set a boundary, walk away, hit back?
My instinct is to say that letting yourself be victimized is foolish: once someone shows you who they are, believe them. But then I remember the Bloody Sunday attack on Edmund Pettus Bridge, as immortalized in Ava DuVernay’s Selma. (content warning for graphic, racist violence.) DuVernay intercuts scenes of violence on the bridge with reporters calling in the story and citizens watching, mouths agape, as the horror unfolds on TV.
This nonviolent response was no accident: King and his allies trained extensively how to refrain from retaliation and how to face down violence with dignity. For King, nonviolence wasn’t an act of victimization, it was a strategy:
“Nonviolence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent but to win friendship and understanding...The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that these are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. ... The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness."
King’s nonviolent strategy worked. Response to Bloody Sunday helped spark the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Are we strong enough to walk a path of nonviolence in 2023?
I remember after Trump’s election, despairing liberals began posting things on Facebook like, “If you voted for him, unfriend me now, I don’t want to know you.” A big question for many of my peers was “How am I supposed to share Thanksgiving with friends and relatives who could vote for this person who is, at bare minimum, is willing to use racist and misogynist rhetoric to garner votes?” The two options seemed to be: a.) change the subject/pretend it never happened or b.) cancel Thanksgiving and never speak to these people again.
But I wonder what Dr. King would have to say? What is a nonviolent response when your racist uncle goes off at the dinner table, or your colleague makes some politically incorrect “joke?” How can we win friendship and understanding instead of humiliating or defeating our opponent?
Amanda Ripley’s excellent book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out offers real-world examples of people attempting dialogues across political, religious, and cultural divides. She emphasizes listening for the story underneath the conflict, not falling into black-and-white thinking, and admitting complexity within our own well-worn narratives. We can simultaneously hold on to our truth while hearing someone else out.
When I’ve been able to put this into practice, it’s certainly helped me communicate with relatives and friends whom I disagree with. When I dug deeper, I found that we do share underlying values like fairness, integrity, or responsibility. I can’t say with any certainty that these dialogues have changed anyone’s vote, but I have seen that as I lowered my verbal weapons, we were able to both be curious about each other’s views and find more common ground.
That’s not to say that these dialogues are easy. I have been known to bite my tongue and bitch behind someone’s back instead of speaking up. On the flip side, I’ve also yelled unhelpful things across the dinner table. Not a good look! But I’m comforted by the notion that having space to screw up is part of being in community, too.
The ultimate goal of nonviolence is the creation of a beloved community, in which we are all liberated from the “isms” that hold us back. And that’s a goal worth fighting for.
Discussion/Journal Questions:
What do you think of nonviolence? Are there any ways you currently practice nonviolence?
Think back to a time when someone made a racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. remark in front of you. How did you respond? How do you wish you responded?
I’m starting to do monthly themes for the Substack. January’s is “community,” in February we’ll talk about sex and purity culture. What other themes would you like to tackle in this space? Let me know in the comments.
BONUS REEL: 10 Ways to Respond when Someone Says Something Racist