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Triple Evils
The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and WAR are forms of violence
that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive,
and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community. When
we work to remedy one evil, we affect all evils. The issues change
in accordance with the political and social climate of our nation
and world. Some contemporary manifestations are in italics below.
POVERTY - materialism, unemployment, homelessness, hunger,
malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, slums...
"There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however,
is that we now have the resources to get rid of it. The time has
come for an all-out world war against poverty ... The well off and
the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the
poverty and deprivation in their midst. Ultimately a great nation
is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great
if it does not have a concern for 'the least of these." *
RACISM - prejudice, apartheid, anti-Semitism, sexism,
colonialism, homophobia, ageism, discrimination against differently
abled, stereotypes...
"Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It
is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and
object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission.
It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the
progress of history and alone can assure the progress of the future.
Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but
minds and spirits. Inevitably it descends to inflicting spiritual
and physical homicide upon the out-group." *
WAR - militarism, imperialism, domestic violence, rape,
terrorism, media violence, drugs, child abuse...
"A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order
and say of war- 'This way of settling differences is not just.'
This way of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's
homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate
into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from
dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped psychologically
deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A
nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual
death." *
To work against the Triple Evils, you need to: develop a nonviolent frame
of mind as described in the "Six
Principles of Nonviolence"; and use the Kingian model for
social action outlined in the "Six
Steps for Nonviolent Social Change."
Source: "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos
or Community?" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967.
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