This has always been the place
While it is entirely true from an aspirational perspective, the phrase "there's no place for violence in politics" is a demonstrably, wildly, false and ahistorical notion. We are a nation neck-deep in violence from the very first moment people began colonizing this land. The nation was born of violence and has perpetuated it against peoples within and out for centuries.
While it's essential that we continue the long endeavor of marching toward a future where we do not have violence within our politics or on our streets, in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces, or on the steps of our Capitol; it is also important to understand the history of our violence and our current way of selectively acknowledging violence if we are to actually make progress in its reduction.
"There's no place for violence" is an aspiration but also an admonition and I urge understanding the difference between who is using which form. Because while we should demand such a future where there is no place for violence, we are demanding it while standing in the shadow of authoritarianism, fascism, and oppression. And it is also true that in the history of the world, few, if any, people have ever overcome authoritarianism, fascism, or oppression without violence.
To be clear, this is not me advocating for violence. This is me saying that our aspirations for a brighter future should light the way not blind us to the realities of the here and now nor the history that precedes us. Because we know what has come before and we know where it could go next.
There is a difference between "there's no place for violence...so we must work together to create a society that fosters care, the safety to exist as we are with our different identities and abilities, and equitable access to the tools and resources for a good life so we can reduce the conditions that lead to violence" and "there's no place for violence...except when a specific side is the one encouraging, excusing, and committing violence for the sake of their ideology and their hold on power is dependent on ensuring that everyone else does not resist or revolt so they must be held to a standard of nonviolence."
Denial and obfuscation about that difference is not neutrality, decency, or civility. It's delusion. It's negligence. It's harm. It is treating some people's violence as violence and the other people's violence as an expression of free speech.
When we say "there is no place for violence in politics," history says otherwise. History shouts and screams otherwise. We need to understand what can possibly be different now that could change whether we follow the same patterns that have filled the centuries before and we need to organize and act around those differences.
If we really want the world where there truly is no place for violence, it is critical to understand what must be done in order realize that vision and be uncompromising and inexhaustible in the pursuit of eliminating the tools and power imbalances that enable violence and oppression.
We know how terrible things are now and how horrifically worse they can be. We know they're going to keep going in that direction unless something changes. We know that human beings possess a startling, terrifying ability to create entirely new, unfathomably awful ways to hurt each other. But it is not all that we are capable of. If we are to discover new boundaries of our humanity, let it not be new depths of tolerance, denial, or passivity in the face of harm but new heights to our will to actually act against injustice, our resolve to overcome manipulation and division, and an unrelenting defiance of those who foment hate and oppression.
