I respect Daryl Davis enormously and I think in many ways he shows us the best of who we can be.
At the same time, the criticism I heard from (I believe) the person who was an NAACP executive was that Mr. Davis works against racism in retail mode, while organizations like the NAACP work in wholesale mode. It’s good to reach out a hand and change a mind, but these movements - the racists, misogynists, and LGBT-phobic - are recruiting thousands and tens of thousands. They can and should be humanized, but the real battles are being fought in the courts, the halls of government, and the media. I admire him and think he deserves to be elevated and we’d all be the better for it, but there’s a very real fight to be had in addition to reaching out a hand and doing a one at a time conversion.
Sorry, but this is a strange criticism. Does anyone say Daryl’s way is the only way? You can do all of that at the same time, just someone like Daryl can do this much better than fight people in court. This just happens to get more press since it is an individual who does good against a terrible organisation. Organisations vs organisations in court just does not sound as interesting.
