Alex Zamalin

Zamalin suggests that while disasters frighten us, we should view them as opportunities for change. They can make us aware of inequities and injustices quietly engulfing us, especially the lives of the poor, minorities, women, LGBTQ, the handicapped and elderly communities.
Zamalin gives examples of individuals John Woolman, Emma Goldman, William Apess, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglas, Jane Addams, Dorothy Day, and others who, throughout history experienced or witnessed disasters or injustices that harmed innocent people. Dismayed, and outraged at weak, troubling, exploitive and violent responses folks who suffered received these individuals felt compelled to do something to change outdated, ineffective and often detrimental practices to get better outcomes.

The first step to revolt is to call attention to a problem. The more folks know about a bad situation the more they will want to get involved and help. Often many of the the rich, powerful, large corporations, in addition to government agencies are vested in keeping bad policies in place, doing business as usual and maintaining the status quo. Disasters have the potential of pushing necessary change forward if we show the will to speak out, protest, resist and organize.

This book is definitely not for the faint of the heart. When I began reading, I was initially taken aback by the idea that regular people could revolt. (Born in the late 50's I had always been taught to behave and comply.) I knew I could never do what many of these heroic individuals did, and now others continue to carry on. While I respect, admire and look up to their strength, determination, integrity, and incredible sacrifices, a part of me felt like they were TALL TALES from history, wishful thinking. Regular people didn't do this crazy stuff.

But that is just the point Zamalin is making. Regular men and women who found themselves in dire straits or witnessed others suffering, and could empathize. They became galvanized into helping promote change in the form of justice, fairness, and equality. What could a person do that would be better than that?

As an idealistic person, my problem is with not understanding WHY people need to ‘fight’ for what’s right. Isn’t it in everyone’s self-interest to do good, care about each other, support our families, communities, countries, and governments? Acknowledge and accept our differences? Obviously, I’ve had to become more realistic over the years but it’s definitely been a stressful, disheartening, rough journey, and continues to be.

The key takeaway of the book that it is our right to defend ourselves and our families from harm. To do that we need to be vigilant to what is happening around us, become more engaged in our communities, and more aware of what our government is or is not doing (don’t assume our government is perfect; it’s not), find those who are in need, help them, and find ways to do the most good for all of us. When it becomes necessary activate.… (más)

This wasn’t a book that was on my radar but I just noticed it while browsing on Edelweiss and decided to pick it up. And now when I read it, it feels so prescient.

We all have seen the political discourse for the past five years where many moderates/centrists have lamented the loss of civility in politics than the authoritarian tendencies of an openly law breaking president and his administration. So, it wasn’t a surprise that we got to read many such calls for bipartisan compromise and democrats to reach out to their right wing counterparts, after the 2020 election. But the farce that has been playing out since then, with a party and the president trying all they can to disenfranchise a complete section of voters and overturn a democratically elected next President - it clearly shows that calls for civility and compromise have no place in our politics anymore, because we can’t be civil with people who will usurp our rights at any given chance so that they can maintain their white supremacist power.

And the author shows through his writing - tracing back such calls for civility and morality from the days of slavery to civil war to reconstruction to Jim Crow to the civil rights movement to BLM - that anytime a group of civic minded people come together to create a movement that tries to disrupt the status quo and fights for rights like equitable justice, eradication of poverty, antiracist and anti discrimination policies, climate action etc, all the elite who benefit from the status quo try to undermine the movement through calls for civility. Strongly worded speeches, protests, sit-ins, boycotts - these are legitimate forms of nonviolent action that have the power to energize people to fight more proactively for their rights, and that’s what scares the beneficiaries of this racist inequitable system and they try to frame all the protests in terms of a law and order issue, diverging from the core narrative of what the activists are fighting for. The author rightly points out that being civil has never worked out for any of the progressive movements before, and only disruptive activism has led to some systemic changes.

But the work is still a lot incomplete, which is even more glaringly obvious after the results of this election and it is the duty of every civic minded person to unfailingly question the inequities of our society and the role government plays in perpetuating them; while not heeding to the voices of those who call for moderation and incremental changes instead of radical progress.

From the author’s own words — Inequality and exclusion have always been evident in American culture, and these conditions have always been maintained through violence. The plea for activists to be civil—in the past, now, and always—subverts this reality and implies that things can’t really be that bad. After all, how can one even call for civility if catastrophe is staring one in the face? Isn’t the call to civility a product of a smug insistence that individual moral virtue will magically fix an ailing society? It can’t and it hasn’t.

In conclusion, though this book looks back at lots of important movements through American history, it is much more relevant to our current political reality and I would definitely encourage anyone to pick it up. Learning from the past is very important, especially when our country is going through turmoil - and history teaches us that progress happens only after a prolonged collective fight for it, not by being silent or civil individuals.… (más)