With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, “Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play, I refuse to obey you. I refuse to cooperate with your demands. I refuse to build the walls and the bombs. I refuse to pay for the guns. With this hand I will even interfere with the wrong you are doing. I want to disrupt the easy pattern of your life.”
But then the advocate of nonviolence lowers the other hand. It is lowered outstretched—maybe with love and sympathy, maybe not — but always outstretched. [...] With this hand we say, “I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you are ready. Like it or not, we are part of one another.”
--- Barbara Deming, On Revolution and Equilibrium