Herbst: A Study in Agonism
A popular Martin Luther King Jr. quotation that has been floating around Facebook reads, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Without much explanation, most students will understand that the relevant riot is the recent social unrest in Baltimore. Moreover, that these actions constitute “the language of the unheard” implies a message that can only be gleaned through rioting. That message could read, “Oppressive institutions rely on the illusion of social stability to perpetrate themselves. By undermining social stability, we expose the pernicious nature of oppression and subvert it.” We may be tempted to understand this as denizens of a world defined by social media activism with a blurred relevance to local contexts.