While I generally agree with this piece, this part is not even remotely close to being historically accurate. As MLK noted, oppressors never willingly give up power when it benefits them and equality must be demanded. Perhaps non-violently, but that doesn't mean "peacefully." MLK intentionally drove some dynamics to the point of being purposeful provocative in order to force movement.

In Birmingham, “King’s intent was to provoke mass arrests and ‘create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.’” In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, King points out that “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

In reality, all modern successes for freedom were accomplished in blood and suffering and outright war. It took nearly 100 years of advocacy for women to get the vote in the US. They started out reasonable, and going through channels, and pretty quickly discovered that it was going to take blood and pain and yelling and marching, and hunger strikes, and things like that. Pretending that isn't so is for the purposes of what King described as being "more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” It's turning a blind eye to actual history.

Yes, we need to continue to find ways to come together and to stop looking at each other as enemies, but dominant groups are not just going to buy into this process because we asked peacefully and negotiated intelligently. We've tried that for decades and we need more than that. Show me even one example of where peaceful protest and respectful negotiations has ever resulted in any kind of meaningful change because I can't call to mind any.

We're only enemies because dominant groups (in this case, men) have almost no interest in giving up any power or privilege. When more of them start caring about an equitable world because it's the right thing to do, that's when things can start to move.