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PDFLeonard Pitts, Jr., Sacramento Bee:
And yes, I know someone wishes I should just shut up about it. I hear that a lot. Indeed, more than once, someone has actually told me there’d be no racial problems in this country “if you didn’t talk about it.” What a piece of logic that is: Ignore it and it will go away.
Such people, Martin Luther King once observed, mistake silence for peace. Silence is not peace.
As we count the lessons we have learned since L.A. burned, count that as one of the lessons we have not. Here is another: Justice too long delayed is justice denied. As protesters often put it: “No justice, no peace.”
Sometimes, I wonder if some of us really understand what that means. With the L.A. riots now 20 years behind us and the Martin case before us, it is a good time to consider those words afresh, consider them in light of our noble ideals and too-frequent failings, consider them as if it were you, looking for recourse after justice failed you – again.
Because, you see, that slogan is not a threat. It’s not a prediction. It’s not even a warning.
“No justice, no peace” is a certainty.
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