for evil to triumph, good men should do nothing Options

[Comptine]

the topic title is a version of a famous quote by Edmund Burke.

in a show i watched, one character was about to be sent back to rwanda to be executed. he was a doctor in rwanda who was asked by military men to set up a shelter for tutsis. when his clinic was packed full of tutsis, the military men came back with even more men and proceeded to slaughter everyone there except the doctor. the doctor had let it happen and didn't do anything (tried to reason with the military men, get help, etc.)

do you think just because one individual did nothing against evil, he should have to face the consequences as if he did an act of evil himself?

[Spirited Away]

this comes back to the story of the jew who did nothing against the nazis who took his neighbors. there is no surprise in this, evil acted and good allowed evil to act freely. back to the saying, it's so negative that it's almost an evil in itself.

actually, i want to question the 'truth' of the saying now that i really thought about it. what about thurgood marshall? marcus garvey? frederick douglass? carol moseley braun? mae c. jemison? robert C. maynard? benjamin carson? these are the names of those who are either still living or died, but not by the evil that the saying implies. they may not be as well-known as Dr King, but their struggles was for something very similar and impacted American society. they were/are great black leaders.

you see, the saying actually demeans the importance of other great black leaders. it makes people not believe that change is possible when it IS possible if people would at least try.