Last week’s Nehemiah Action at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church drew around 2,000 people from 30 area congregations to watch as leaders from the Charleston County School Board and the cities of Charleston and North Charleston were called out on the issues of arresting school children and complaints about racial profiling. Unfortunately, the Charleston Area Justice Ministry’s event also drew a lot of heat from critics who were uncomfortable with some of Nehemiah Action’s approaches to social justice.What was it again that Martin Luther King, Jr. said about white moderates — something about being more concerned with order than justice? It’s strange that we don’t see that quote enough, much as we don’t often see this one: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice.” The supposed tension that CAJM created at its most recent event is a result of the absence of justice.The complaints about CAJM’s tone and tactics are based on a number of errant assumptions about power in America and the structure of contemporary society. For one thing, the presumption that people asking for justice must do so respectfully, especially from a system that never fully accepted them as members of society in the first place, is beyond ridiculous.
Source: Nehemiah Action puts area leaders’ feet to fire | Public Policy LTD. | Charleston City Paper