Bobby Kennedy Is A Voice That’s Still Relevant
Bobby Kennedy neither had a crystal ball nor did he expect America to stay frozen in time. And yet…
Bobby Kennedy neither had a crystal ball nor did he expect America to stay frozen in time for 51 years. And yet…
In 1968, Bobby Kennedy said a lot of things at a time when they needed to be said.
Of course, everyone has an opinion about the Kennedy’s. I’m no different. However, I don’t wrestle with Bobby Kennedy.
Of course, he was a man of profound privilege with a legendary competitive streak. And his family had opportunities I could only ever dream of.
But for all of his wealth and all of that stuff, he had a strange understanding and connection with normalcy. Who can say where that came from or why it was there. Some people have it and some don’t. Because the modern era loves labels, today we would call Bobby Kennedy an “empath.”
If you go back through his speeches from 1968, you will read and/or hear the voice of a man struggling. Struggling to find a reason why he was witnessing his country falling apart. He loved the United States and recognized it as the country that not only gave his family so much, but also took from it.
But never once did Robert Kennedy appear or sound entitled.
The salaciousness of the Kennedy clan seems to be all anyone wants to highlight. Of course, Bobby Kennedy wasn’t perfect. But who is? It was this imperfection that deepened his humanity and allowed him to resonate with so many people.
It’s often said that 1968 was one of the most divisive years in American history. However, I have a suspicion that 2019 — 2020 is going to give 1968 a real contest for the shittiest year.
We are the United States of America. Not little subsets of united individuals or groups — we’re supposed to represent a unity of peoples.
The only thing we’re united about is our disunity.
This disunity stems from and is perpetuated by many people and institutions, but I don’t want to address that here.
What I want to highlight are the words of Bobby Kennedy. In his speeches from his campaign trail in 1968, you can read/hear words that are coming from the soul of a man who cared deeply about the people in his country.
It’s rumored his first words after being shot were, “Is everyone else okay?”
His murder was a tragic event in American history and one that led us down a very dark path for years. There were moments we stepped off the dark path but here we are again, not only on a dark path but headed towards a terrifying abyss.
A voice like Robert Kennedy’s is noticeably absent today.
51 years later, Bobby’s words still resonate. 51 years later, Bobby’s words still need to be said.
This speech is titled On the Mindless Menace of Violence (public domain) and was given on April 5, 1968, in Cleveland, Ohio — the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, JR:
“This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings who other human beings loved and needed. No one — no matter where he lives or what he does — can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero;
an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily — whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence —
whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors.
…When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, …men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.
…The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course, we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of a common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”
We haven’t come very far since 1968.
_________________________________________
Rufus wants you to sign up for his Weekly Newsletter: