alt Hacker NewsLetter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
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I always re-read this on MLK day and learn something new each time. Pull quote for this year
“All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
I think this pairs well with and contrasts to the quote that I think many prefer to quote, that “the arc of history is long, but it tends toward justice”.
My daughter was about the age of King's daughter when I first read this letter. It had a deep and profound effect and strengthened my commitment to racial and gender equality:
when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"
I'm forever grateful that Letter From Birmingham Jail was required reading during my highschool education(US history). It came during an impactful time - when I naturally questioned authority, but didn't have the wisdom to discern why or how.
Reading it left not a momentary effect, but a life long impression. It's nice to be re-examine it every few years and to notice new details that come with the perspective of recent events.
I'm, of course, grateful to Dr King for writing it, but also to the history teacher 25 years ago who decided to include it in the curriculum. When we're surrounded by self re-enforcing authority, it's takes individuals with courage to choose to share texts like these and its effect is appreciated.
Just as relevant now as ever. This part strikes me particularly:
> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
I think that one of the great failures of our society and our government has been our willingness to allow large gaps to form between a law and its application. We constantly hear about laws that are "on the books but not enforced". We constantly pass laws to remedy perceived ills, but we don't fund or even specify enforcement mechanisms (or we make such mechanisms ineffective), so the laws just add to the pile of unpaid promissory notes that King refers to in another famous passage. (Ironically the civil rights legislation that King fought for is an example of this.)
I also wonder what King would say if we could ask him today about what he says here. In the situation he describes, is it really the ordinance itself that becomes unjust, or can it be that the ordinance itself remains just while it is the enforcement process itself that is unjust?
We seem too content to allow decisions about the provisions of a law to be separated from decisions about how those provisions are implemented; we allow innumerable people (e.g., police officers) discretion to make their own decisions about what the law means. This leaves space for those people to interpose their own personal biases and beliefs between the law and its operation. I think we need to fix that.
This letter reads like a relic of democratic optimism that I find difficult to bear.
The dichotomy between Martin and Malcolm that people like to draw is tired and ‘undeveloper’ does a better job at criticizing this than I think I could. [1]
One of the advantages that Malcolm had over Martin was how deft he was at articulating the spoil in American government.
Read “The Ballot or the Bullet”; jump to page nine here for my point: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/0/20...
Malcolm representing the side of ‘violence’ in the non-violent/violent dichotomy is him being a realist about the situation that Black people were facing in the US since their arrival in the country. I think a more profound point of his that’s glossed over is that you cannot simply legislate equality into existence and that framing the treatment of Blacks in the US as a ‘civil rights’ issue was a misaddress of the issue.
But I think a lot of people are satisfied to settle for the appeal of what Martin and Malcolm's ideologies/methodologies represent on the surface. A matter of rhetoric, I suppose.
Both men’s politics seem frozen by men of time in ways that are easy for common observers to grasp. Never mind the evolution of thought that both men experienced in the years (and in the case of Malcolm, months, practically) before their assassinations.
So yeah. Riots are the voice of the unheard. Short of five years after this letter people throughout the US spent a “Holy Week” perpetuating that maxim.
I don’t know where this remark is going...
What a timeless banger, you fill in the blanks on this part:
'Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of __________ <American political leader> dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when __________ <American political leader> gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred?"'
This speech is a masterclass in effecting change through influence rather than authority.
An alt-right lunatic could use this argument to suggest that those certain and particular J6ers who assembled openly, did not conceal identity, did not use force, nor make forcible entry, nor threaten others, ought never to have been arrested and jailed.
But that's crazy talk.
Martin Luther King Jr. has had a profound impact on my thinking, and is the historical figure who captivates me above all others. I am glad to see his writing appear on HN.
One concept which has pervaded my thinking recently due to personal circumstance is of forgiveness. I tend towards 'forgive but not forget'; I don't feel particularly attached to the past, but neither am I willing to let go of it. In one of his speeches [0] he addresses this directly.
He says that forgiving but not forgetting is not true forgiveness; but neither should you ignore one's past transgressions. Forgiveness is being willing to forge a new relationship. Not one built on history, but independent of it. The willingness to give a fresh start to those who seek it.
Another, more well-known idea he spoke of (that folks here are likely familiar with) is that of hate only adding to hate. I'll just leave his words here directly:
> The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
[0] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/lov...
I want to call out this part, which is just as relevant today as it was 60+ years ago:
> I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
What MLK is talking about how the "white moderate" sides with the oppressors by defending the status quo and choosing "order" over progress.
This is the exact schism that currently exists in the Democratic Party today. If you pay attention to American politics, you'll probably have an idea that there is a civil war within the Democratic Party between "liberals" and "leftists". "Liberals", the same "white moderates", defend American imperialism, want to put a smiley face on ICE rather than abolishing it and basically just want to be "Republican lite".
These policies are deeply unpoular with the base, such the the net approval of the Democratic Party is at historic lows [1]. This isn't incompetence. It's a choice to favor the donor class and their future job prospects over the interests of their base.
A lot of these "white moderates" today get angry at leftists (way more than at Republicans, ironically) for being "single issue voters" about Palestine since that's now become a litmus test for candidates in primary season. First, they don't understand what a single issue voter actually is. Second, and more importantly, there's not a single politician who has a good stance on racial justice and equality, women's rights and so on that has a bad position on Palestine. There is a refusal to see how these things are interconnected.
[1]: https://civiqs.com/results/favorable_democrats?uncertainty=t...
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> Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.
> I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
I always have to go back to read this part again because I feel like it's so unexpected. You don't really hear anyone saying quite the same thing today.