I must remind you that starving a child is violence. Suppressing a culture is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Punishing a mother and her family is violence. Discrimination against a working man is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical need is violence. Contempt for poverty is violence.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that various societal injustices and neglect can be considered forms of violence.
Coretta Scott King's quote highlights the different ways in which violence manifests in society, extending beyond physical harm to include actions such as neglect, discrimination, and cultural suppression. By framing these injustices as forms of violence, she urges us to recognize the profound impact of societal neglect and structural inequalities on individuals and communities, advocating for awareness and action to combat these issues.
In practice
During a social justice talk, one might use this quote to illustrate the many faces of violence in society.
I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy. The civil rights movement thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion. My husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement.
...We have an historic opportunity for a great global healing and renewal. If we will accept the challenge of nonviolent activism with faith, courage, and determination, we can bring this great vision of a world united in peace and harmony from a distant ideal into glowing reality.
I think if people really read Martin Luther King, Jr., then they would begin to understand what he really represented.
It doesn't matter how strong your opinions are. If you don't use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.
Sometimes, I am also identified as a civil rights leader or a human rights activist. I would also like to be thought of as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way, much like everyone else.
People don't ever have to starve to death; there are solutions. We have failed if we can't eradicate hunger in Africa and Ethiopia.
My activism did not spring from being black...The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
When the man who feeds the world by toiling in the fields is himself deprived of the basic rights of feeding, sheltering, and caring for his own family, the whole community of man is sick.
Things have become considerably better for men of colour since I was born. But I'd say that we'll be really getting somewhere when things get better for women of colour.
Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives. You come out of prison, and where are you expected to go?
If I wrote in Michael Harrington's time, roughly 50 years later when he published 'The Other America', I'd still be writing about poverty and also entrenched racial injustice.
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