And sometimes getting the latter requires sacrificing the former, since, if one s watchword is tolerance, it could become far too easy to begin tolerating in justice. Too easy to resist raising one s voice against the prevailing mentality of white superiority which pervades our culture, because, after all, one must be understanding, and less judgmental, and tolerate differences perhaps even those which destroy lives. The Bell Curve is not worthwhile, and it deserves to be ridiculed, not tolerated as just another contribution to the marketplace of ideas. Folks who say the Holocaust never happened, merit derision, not ad space in college newspapers. And yet, on these points, there is no response from SPLC, or its Klanwatch program which, by definition is too busy watching the boys in the sheets, to keep their eyes on the boys in the suites.
Tolerance often precludes anger, and anger is usually a necessary predicate to social change.
Martin Luther King Jr., despite his commitment to love his enemies was decidedly intolerant of American apartheid. By confronting white southerners with their attachment to the system of racial subordination, King was, thankfully, making clear his intolerance for many folks way of life, as quite a few of his targets were quick to point out. King and his contemporaries were not attacking intolerance, nor pushing for diversity that other buzzword of the well intended. Let s focus on what brings us together, they insist, rather than on what divides us, which is to say, let s not talk about oppression, because that, after all, is a pretty big downer. But neither a plunger shoved up Abner Louima s ass nor the 41 shots fired at Amadou Diallo by a bunch of New York s finest are about hate.