The Yin to the Progressive Yang

“Examples of balance can be found everywhere — even in those places where you least expect them.” — Dr. Patrizia Collard

Photo by Michael Ankes on Unsplash

In the 1960s, Nikki Giovanni wrote a short story called A Revolutionary Tale where one character asked another, “How can black people be conservative? What do they have to conserve?”

For these characters, a conservative was someone inclined to preserve the existing system and resist change. These characters lived in a white racist society and concluded black people had “absolutely nothing” to conserve.

Progressives believe existing systems are always in need of improvement for the betterment of humanity. Except, social progress through organic change doesn’t materialize fast enough, and every progressive movement has attempted to speed up the process.

For progressives, forcing change is a moral duty, and history reveals the “modern world” wouldn’t exist without these efforts.

However, there’s a scene in Alex Haley’s Roots when a young man from Africa refused to accept the name assigned to him by the plantation owner. Eventually, the young African was whipped until he answered to the name imposed on him.