Dear Editor,
I find Brooks Smith’s response (March 17 issue) to Ms. Henderson’s ignorant and simplistic.?
Smith asserts that Henderson’s article “does nothing in the way of solving issues at hand.”
Perhaps more strange and presumptive than this statement is the fact that Smith seems to simply ignore that highlighting social ills is an inextricable central facet of activism.
Look at the history of peaceful activism in this and other nations.
A significant part of it is through highlighting problems, bringing attention to unjust distinctions, legislations, etc.
What would Smith have Henderson and other peaceful activists do?
Violence certainly seems to get more of our attention these days, but the marriage of love and justice requires a different sort of fight.
Even the violent method effectively serves to raise public consciousness, albeit by information and fear, rather than information and an appeal to a human sense of justice.
I suppose that it is already too often attempted to move people by fear and, further, that such motivation is a tragically limited and shamefully manipulative one.
The solution to the problem of the proposed elitist parking program seems obvious enough that one need not spell it out.
Offer parking spots in such a way that people’s socioeconomic status does not itself include or eliminate them.
That is the solution and, strangely enough, the proposed plan shifts the situation from a state of affairs that is, at least in this way, solved.
I wonder if this is enough “activism” for Smith.
– Charles Jones

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