The student protests in the USA, and how some people are responding to them, brought back a memory.
I was a teenager in South Africa in the 80s and a white kid in an all white school. At a certain point, as apartheid was dismantled, it became clear to everyone that schools were going to be racially integrated, it was inevitable.
I and a few of my friends campaigned for our school to become a "sister school" with a local black school. We thought that would help with the transition. Maybe students from our school could visit theirs and vice versa, or we could play soccer together etc.
The plan failed, not because of the headmaster (who met with us) or the teachers or parents.
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Resistance came from my friends who were planning the campaign with me saying "*We* think this is a good idea, but us being too radical will alienate the people we're trying to convince"
They considered even our milquetoast mild plans "too radical" because they knew there were people who fundamentally disagreed with us.
No matter how polite and rule abiding we were, we were in fundamental disagreement with many other students and their parents who opposed racial integration.
They knew that this would be a confrontation, and they couldn't abide that.
They chose being polite and unconfrontational ("good" in their understanding) above being true to our goals, and because there was no polite or unconfrontational way to achieve our goals, our goals were abandoned.
Point of my story is that some of us are taught that being polite and unconfrontational and accommodating is more important than anything else. And that's a dangerous lie.
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