(Bloomberg Opinion) -- With widespread grief and protests over the killing of George Floyd, the U.S. is badly in need of national leadership. Ideally, the president, or someone with a great deal of stature and trust, would provide it.
In an analogous time, Robert F. Kennedy did exactly that, with what is generally considered one of the most moving speeches in U.S. history. Like the Gettysburg Address, which it resembles, it is elegiac — and short. And as with Lincoln's great speech, every word rings true.
But if you listen to it today, you would be right to feel some discomfort. For all its gentleness and sensitivity, it is missing something important: an acknowledgment of the past and present effects of white racism.
The day was April 4, 1968. Kennedy was in Indianapolis, running for the Democratic nomination for president. Martin Luther King Jr. had just been killed. RFK announced King's assassination to an audience that was largely African-American. People were worried about riots.
Kennedy began simply: “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.” He addressed the question of the proper response: “For those of you who are black — considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge.”
Instead Kennedy called for “an effort to understand with compassion and love.” In the most personal part of his remarks, he said, “For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.”
He reminded his audience that a member of his own family had also been killed, and “by a white man.” And he made a plea for unity:
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
Most white people and most black people, Kennedy added, “want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.” After King's murder, he urged, we should dedicate ourselves to an ancient goal, which is “to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
It's a beautiful speech, delivered with compassion. In the immediate aftermath of King's assassination, it might have been perfect.
But as a model for the current situation, it's not enough. The reason is that it sounds a little bit like #AllLivesMatter, which, while important and true, is not the central message that Americans need to hear today.
As a slogan, “all lives matter” is meant and understood as a rejoinder to #BlackLivesMatter, and thus as a rejection of that movement's basic point, which is to draw attention to something specific and real and pervasive: threats and violence against African-Americans, too often at the hands of the police.
The idea of #AllLivesMatter effaces the historical context for the plea, or demand, of “black lives matter,” because it ignores the specific ways in which black lives have been devalued or destroyed, including through official violence.
Kennedy was right to say that “Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings.” Characteristic words from King: “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
But King was not focused on love and justice in the abstract. He was focused on racial injustice and on white supremacy. He had strong words to say about the “white moderate,”
who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
It is true, as Kennedy emphasized, that many “still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.” But the killing of George Floyd, other killings of African-Americans, and daily indignities and humiliations and injustices involve something specific. They involve a defining feature of American history that goes back to slavery and the founding, and that Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, recognized when he said, “I tremble for my country when I recognize that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”
African-Americans need to hear from a national leader who trembles. For different and equally urgent reasons, white Americans need to hear that, too.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Cass R. Sunstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of “The Cost-Benefit Revolution” and a co-author of “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.”
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