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A thought provoking comment by Al-Gharbi. Regarding the student Gaza protestors, I don’t think they were nearly as menacing and disruptive as they thought themselves to be. How exactly are you threatening an institution, and claiming that institution is somehow complicit in a genocide, while at the same time paying that institution tens of thousands of dollars per year?

To Al-Gharbi’s broader point: he does a very good job of pointing out how violence and intimidation at some level was necessary to advance the Civil Rights Movement. Dwight D. Eisenhower used the 101st Airborne to escort black children to school in Little Rock, for instance. And MLK did carry a gun with him.

But I think that people do not always realize how dangerous outright violence is in a civil society. My father, a retired historian, often says that the veneer of civilization is dangerously thin. Once violence is unleashed, it can take on a life all of its own and consume everything in its path. Ex. The miscalculations that lead to WWI.

If Dr. Al-Gharbi ever sees this, I’d be very interested to know what he thinks of this article on MLK:

https://thedispatch.com/article/mlk-and-the-content-of-character/

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