“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
These words by Martin Luther King Jr. have resonated deeply with me since reading them last semester. The problem now is that, coming from someone not firmly on either side of the political spectrum, I see injustice everywhere.
When I went to hear Charles Murray speak, I wanted to be a fly on the wall during the protest, but I was moved to speak when the protesters shut down his speech. Murray wrote a best-selling book, predicted in 2012 a candidate like Donald Trump would win the 2016 election and was invited to speak at the school by a student organization. As the protesters left, they screamed, “No fascist USA!” I yelled back at them, “This protest is the most fascist thing I have seen at this school!”
I read the op-ed titled “The only fascist, sexist bigot in the classroom” and the op-ed titled “To the fascist, sexist bigot in the classroom” and felt torn because they were both right and both wrong at the same time. I’ve been studying the rise of original fascists in my fascist cinema class, and it’s hard not to see the parallels to Germany in the ’20s. But the constant polarization in our country only contributes more to that. By calling everyone who voted for Trump a fascist, you alienate them from your ideas, driving them to someone even worse like Richard Spencer. This kind of infighting that I have seen in our community is so dangerous because it makes us more vulnerable to true evils and true fascists. That is why when people say that you must pick a side, I respond that I am very happy to be in the middle, trying to bridge the gap between the right and the left.
Jacob Harris is an LSA senior.