Refusing to Take the Path of Least Resistance

    This image is from the selection of children’s books at Barnes and Noble celebrating Black History Month for the month of February.  Within the selection of these books are stories for children recounting the accomplishments of icons such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama in advancing black privilege in American history. 

    While the books in the image are not actively refusing to take the path of least resistance, they are representing periods in U.S. history when oppressed individuals and groups have taken the path of least resistance.  Key events, such as the 1963 March on Washington featuring Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the use of the underground railway, Rosa Parks’ refusal to get up from her bus seat, and the election of the first black American president are shown in these books as historical examples of how individuals consciously made steps to fight oppression.  However, Allan Johnson in his book The Gender Knot states that enacting change is typically limited to certain groups, that, for most people, enacting change is not a real possibility.  He wrote, “Systemic paths of least resistance provide powerful reasons for people to go along with the status quo.  This is why individual change is often restricted to people who either have little to lose or who are secure and protected enough to choose a different path.”  Because of this, occasions such as Black History Month are important to remind us of the individuals and groups that have come before us that have refused to take the path of least resistance, and have caused changes in society to give us the life we have today.  Keeping this in mind is significant as a catalyst for future change.

    While I have not had huge examples from my personal actions of how I’ve applied this term in my personal life, there have been moments, such as a brief participation in the Occupy movement or voting for Barack Obama, where I have felt the significance of being involved.  One moment I wish I could have taken a real refusal to take the path of least resistance was in March 2003, when we began bombing Iraq.  Still in the Navy, I woke up the morning we had bombed them, on the ship that had bombed them, to see on the large television screen what had happened.  The position I was in during that time, the voice that I didn’t have and the action that I couldn’t take, disturbed me for some time afterward.