Thanks to Associate Professor of History Naoko Shibusawa P’14 for conveying her support and admiration for those who protested against New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly last Tuesday. I join her in standing in solidarity with these students and members of the Providence community. We live in a conflicted, unequal society and are at times presented with situations that can’t be adequately confronted within the customs of polite, institutionally structured debate alone. As Shibusawa says, there is a long, honorable history of disruptive protest that is part of the tradition of political democracy.
Professor of Biology Ken Miller’s ’70 P’02 claim that last Tuesday’s protest represents “a step . . . towards mob rule” strikes me as alarmist and one-sided. Kelly has not been silenced: His advocacy for a policy of intimidating racial profiling is widely known and currently being debated in the federal courts. For people who are being threatened and violated by stop-and-frisk, the time has come to combine serious debate with serious action.
William Keach
Professor of English
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