In the bible there are lots of quotes saying about how peace is the best way to deal with things. For example Matthew 5:9 – “blessed are the peacemakers” and Mark 9:50 – “live in peace with one another”. I think this shows that we should be peaceful to one another, not violent. Christians follow the bible and get advice from it, so hey should follow the example it sets about making peace not war. Jesus was a pacifist, which means he was against all forms of violence. Shouldn’t we follow his lead? After all he is the Son of God.
Some other people that are or were against racism are Martin Luther King Jr. and The Quakers. Martin Luther King said, “love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” and lead non-violent and peaceful protests in America. The Quakers are a group of Christians who are pacifists and they talk about using ‘weapons’ of love, telling the truth, co-operation and non-violence.
Violence can also help to confirm stereotypes. For example, let’s say there was a black man, who said, “all whites are nasty”. We wont to beat the racist (not literally) but if we use violence his feelings of whites being nasty are being confirmed by us being violent towards him, whereas if we stay peaceful we’ll be proving him wrong.
If you act violently towards somebody who’s racist you will be playing right into their hands and they will have you right where they want you, but if you stay peaceful they will be angry, because they think they aren’t getting to you. They want you to react to their racism, but if you stay calm it will make them really angry because they want to hurt you but they think they aren’t hurting you, it’s not working, so they might give in. In the same way if some makes fun of you and you ignore them they get bored and stop it.
Some people do agree with using violence against racism. In fact quite a lot of people do, including Christians. I don’t agree with it myself, and I don’t think any reason would be good enough to justify violence but I’ve thought of some reasons that people that are violent to racism might use.
They deserve it. I’ve heard that one so many times, not just to do with racism. As awful as it is, it is one of the most common excuse I’ve heard, of course no one does deserve it, it’s just an easy thing for people to say, to convert their wrong doing back to the racist. Another thing a lot of people say is that violence is the only way to solve things, which we know, is slippery
The people being violent usually try to take the blame off themselves and make everyone believe that it was all the racists fault, but it isn’t the racists fault that they are being violent. For example saying that it’s the racists fault because they started it by being racist.
Some people might say that if you react violently you’ll show the racist that they are in the wrong, and if you threaten them or hurt them they will possibly be too scared to be racist incase someone else uses violence on them again. Of course we all know that all of the above is just nonsense that violent people say to try and justify themselves being violent and to make it look like they are doing a good thing being violent.
There might be a few allowances when the situation isn’t entirely the violent person’s fault, for example in self-defense. The racist could be trying to hurt you and you could just be trying to save yourself, or another example is using violence because it is the only way. The racist could be out of control and the only way you could calm them down would be to slap them or hit them. Desmond Tutu is against violence but he said he could justify Christians using violence to overthrow an evil government. The violent person might have had a violent upbringing and background, so violence could be all they are used to, the only method they know to deal with things.
Some people just want to teach the racist a lesson, they can’t help it. It is human instinct, isnt it? By using violence people feel as if they are in control, it makes them feel stronger, it’s like an addiction, once they have the power, once they are in control, they want more, and they get more and more vicious.
In world war two, Hitler was destroying Jews because he hated them so much. He thought everyone should have blonde hair and blue eyes and everyone else should be killed, so that one-day we would have a ‘pure’ race. England had a war with the Germans, obviously using violence – and we won. We stopped all the Jews dying.
So evidently in some cases violence can be justified especially in extreme incidents such as the holocaust in world war two, but I think violence shouldn’t be used unless absolutely necessary.
