MLK and the white moderate

What's happening in your world? Discuss it here.
Forum rules
Play nice. We will be watching

What do you think?

White people are bad
0
No votes
Orange people are bad
5
18%
Moderates are idiots
1
4%
Full House was a retarded TV show
8
29%
Communism is cool
1
4%
Only black people are moderatates
1
4%
Take out a third mortgage on your house to purchase Bitcoin
2
7%
MLK day is a day with no astrological significance whatsoever
6
21%
Buddha preached the middle path and he’s dead
4
14%
 
Total votes : 28

MLK and the white moderate

Postby Tesseracts » Mon Jan 15, 2018 7:41 pm

Today is Martin Luther King Day. I often see this quote of his posted on social media.

Over the past few years 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.


What do you think of the quote? What does it mean? Sometimes I see people post it as an excuse to promote extreme or violent methods, which MLK clearly did not endorse. However he might have a point about the insincerity of people who say they promote change but really don’t.
  • 13

User avatar
Tesseracts
Big Brother
Big Brother
 
Posts: 9653
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 5:31 am
Show rep
Title: Social Media Expert

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:20 pm

Relevant.

Also, this:
  • 4

Image
User avatar
Deathclaw_Puncher
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 12452
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:42 pm
Location: Fair Oaks, CA
Show rep
Title: Queen of the Furrets

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Marcuse » Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:28 pm

DP, try not to link dump please. The point of the debate thread is to discuss things in your own words.

On the quote itself, I think he's trying to say that the problem he had in fighting for civil rights wasn't especially the hardcore white supremacists, who were openly their enemies and they didn't have to engage with, but the white moderates who would claim to agree but then not do anything to help, or hold them back with a kind of caution born from them not really seeing the consequences of delay given their privileged position in a society that disenfranchises and disadvantages blacks.

It's like being on a boat together, one of the old galleys, and your side is rowing their ass off, but the other side is sat idle because the sea is too rough. You're just going to go in circles, even if everyone agrees that rowing is good, everyone should row and that the direction they want the boat to go in in good. Half of the boat isn't actually rowing, and so they're worse than someone trying to sink the boat who you can legitimately stop, because they're dead weight.
  • 17

User avatar
Marcuse
TCS Sithlord
TCS Sithlord
 
Posts: 6592
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 8:00 pm
Show rep

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby sunglasses » Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:37 pm

I think his point about the white moderate was very poignant at the time.
  • 10

TCS Etiquette Guide

Rules and FAQs

Zevran wrote:Magic can kill. Knives can kill. Even small children launched at great speeds can kill.
User avatar
sunglasses
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 11541
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 2:52 pm
Show rep
Title: The Speaker of Horrors.

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:10 pm

I don't often see this quote used to excuse extremism as much as a shallow understanding of how civil disobedience is supposed to work, twisted by years in which definitions of protest have been whitewashed slowly, Whether or not MLK meant it doesn't really matter, it's used as a club to beat white moderates over the head with if they ever show reluctance to follow the current trend in protest, no matter what their reasons are. It's like the idea of respectability politics being a bad thing.

Civil disobedience works because the institutional response to the disobedience is supposed to be completely disproportional. It's about how much punishment was visited on people doing something as simple as making their own salt or sitting in the wrong bus seat. Modern protests have been completely neutered so that civil disobedience won't work, because the current institutional response is to rope off an area so people can go protest in there without inconveniencing anyone, and anyone who tries to head outside that cordoned off area is very obviously doing something that can immediately be criticized.

Some people however think this means riots themselves can be now considered civil disobedience, as if the random destruction of other peoples' property is ever in any way justifiable. This is the rhetoric where MLK's idea that riots are the voiceless trying to make themselves heard becomes useful, completely ignoring the context that black people at that time were literally voiceless. Where completely victimless means of protest were also outlawable. That scene has completely changed, picketing is now so mundane people ignore it the same way they do internet ads.

I'm not saying there's absolutely no way civil disobedience works today, victimless protest of things that shouldn't be illegal can absolutely happen, say with transgender people using their preferred bathrooms. But it's been very very defanged. Today's injustices as protested by black people aren't as simple as some people being completely forbidden from paths others are allowed by virtue of their class, but more complex questions about how, for example to reduce the victimization of black people by the police when black people are more likely to commit crimes because of their historical oppression. It's a situation where if every black person was treated individually and objectively with respect to the law they'd still be disproportionately represented simply because poor people are also more likely to commit crime, and black people are much poorer on average than white people. How do you civilly protest racist statistics? If you view it without the collective lens, pretty much nothing wrong is happening. (Not to say "it's so easy, just stop looking at it collectively". Different lenses allow you to see different sides of a story, and multiple philosophical views are pretty essential to understand real topics and their various proponents and detractors)



That's my thoughts on the context around the quote, but as for the quote itself, I think he's just wrong. No one deserves the support of white moderates. You can of course shame them into behaving by pointing out how unjust your position is, but even the poorest poor person stealing a rich person's carrot is victimizing the rich person. It's not that fucking simple. Collective lens might make the rich person's class and poor person's class a good enough reason to justify it, maybe even explain why in truth, due to the balance of power and historical injustice, the rich person is victimizing the poor person by making him desperate enough to want to steal the carrot. Anyone who views this individually (or as collectivists would say, is situated in a position where they can view it individually, which of course they consider a position of ignorance) sees it as obvious that the poor man's taking something he doesn't own from a rich man who's done nothing to him.

All people are probably collectivist up to a point looking at this information, of course. Nothing's ever as simple as that and different people will have different responses to similar injustices. "Food stamps are only good as long as they have very strict limits on their usage, because if you're using them on luxuries you obviously can live without them", as opposed to "Poor people already have a shit life, why are you scrutinizing their budgeting when it's no longer your money but government money".

So like, fuck MLK if he thinks white moderates need to accept his protest and shut up and sit down. They're allowed to contribute. If they're not ashamed of in-words-only support, they're not that interested in your cause. The absence of tension is absolutely a worthy thing to want. They've weighed the absence of tension against the presence of justice and they've decided on the absence of tension. What part of this is them lying, exactly? Black people absolutely need the support of white moderates, it's literally the only way they will get institutional support. Rich people, people funded entirely by patrons and fucking Aristocrats made socialism, not workers. To think white people didn't at every step help provide institutional support to end every ended injustice is way too common nowadays, and it's fucking stupid. As conservatives often point out, White People didn't start slavery, but they sure as hell stopped it, to the point where every stable government today has an anti-slavery stance. And quotes like MLK's whitewash this away to make this idealized version of history where black people threw a country wide tantrum which magically got them civil rights despite literally every white person being against them.

(A related rant, there's so much fucking infantilization in white-guilt flavoured history, it's ridiculous. Most white people probably don't even know Gandhi was a fucking member of congress during the time he was protesting. India was already self-ruled to a large extent since about the early 19th century, slowly gaining more and more autonomous powers. Pakistan and India's partition is written of so often as if it was the British being dicks when Jinnah had been arguing for a seperate muslim nation for about 20 years at that point. Who's to say if partition hadn't happened, India wouldn't eventually go the way of Pakistan and become a theocratic shithole that declared hinduism the national religion and oppressed muslims?)
  • 6



WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
User avatar
A Combustible Lemon
TCS Regular
TCS Regular
 
Posts: 486
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:25 pm
Location: The Internet, India
Show rep
Title: Grenadier

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby D-LOGAN » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:23 pm

If anything King was too soft on white moderates/liberals. You want the real scoop on those people, go with Mr. X's take-



Or if it's easier to swallow in a more Washinton-y feel-



Yeah I know the real one changed his mind on this encounter later ... STILL THOUGH!

Oh and Death Claw Puncher, FUCK BARRY DEUTSCH!
  • 3

Not just yet, I'm still tender from before.
User avatar
D-LOGAN
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 3590
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:08 pm
Location: Éire
Show rep
Title: ALL PRAISE UNTO MIGHTY KEK!

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby IamNotCreepy » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:32 pm

I guess I would be considered the white moderate. I believe in justice and trying to help minorities and those less fortunate.

When BLM tried to shut down a major highway during rush hour here, I was infuriated. Did I have some kind of cognitive dissonance? Not really.

I think of the times when the old school civil rights protestors engaged in civil disobedience and inconvenienced the white people. Who did they target? Those who were engaging, or at least passively complicit in, the suppression of minority rights.

They protested things like buses, or diners that wouldn't serve people of color. A highway is neutral. It doesn't discriminate, and using that as the avenue of your protest is not just disruptive, but it is actively alienating those who might otherwise be your allies.

Justice is extremely important, but as a practical matter, you can't just throw out order altogether to accomplish it. That makes enemies unnecessarily and causes potential sympathizers to become indifferent.
  • 6

User avatar
IamNotCreepy
TCS Admin
TCS Admin
 
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:00 am
Location: Inside the "Cone of Uncertainty"
Show rep
Title: Chasing after the Wind

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Learned Nand » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:35 am

Creep, MLK's protestors did march on highways.

Ligament, I don't understand your point about the quote. MLK doesn't seem to be criticizing white moderates for supporting his movement only with words. He seems to be objecting to their criticism of his methods. I think this is clearer in the context of the original letter, where he's not demanding that white moderates participate in his protests, but responding to their criticisms of his protests.
  • 7

Terry Pratchett wrote:The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Click for a Limerick
OrangeEyebrows wrote:There once was a guy, Aviel,
whose arguments no one could quell.
He tested with Turing,
his circuits fried during,
and now we'll have peace for a spell.
User avatar
Learned Nand
Back-End Admin
Back-End Admin
 
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 9:18 pm
Location: Permanently in the wrong
Show rep
Title: Auditor of Reality

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:59 am

There are always people who will only take a cause so far as long as it benefits them. You'll have people on board with a progressive cause, only to drop everything like a hot potato when they can't get everything they want, no matter the long term stakes. For the white moderate at the time, that line was overt racism, yet to be perceived as racist was the worse offense.
  • 1

Image
User avatar
Deathclaw_Puncher
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 12452
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:42 pm
Location: Fair Oaks, CA
Show rep
Title: Queen of the Furrets

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby IamNotCreepy » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:06 am

aviel wrote:Creep, MLK's protestors did march on highways


I think there is a difference between marching as a mass group of people together in solidarity, and a couple of pet blocking the highway during rush hour because of ... reasons? Their protest did not make any sense as to the time and place.
  • 4

User avatar
IamNotCreepy
TCS Admin
TCS Admin
 
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:00 am
Location: Inside the "Cone of Uncertainty"
Show rep
Title: Chasing after the Wind

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:36 am

I was about to say this seems especially pointed now, but I suppose that I could've said that at damn near any time over my lifetime.

When I read that quote earlier in the thread, I remember that he was greatly influenced by Thoreau, who espoused something similar in his essay Civil Disobedience, the idea being that if you are against something, you either actively refuse to support it or you end up tacitly supporting it by not fighting it--sort of a version of "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". His essay was written after he was jailed for refusing to pay taxes, which he refused to do because he hated the idea of his money funding expansion of slavery into Mexican territories.

It may be a little hypocritical of me since I never join protests or marches (although it's primarily because I've only ever worked in fields that outright fire or separate you if they find out you're getting involved in political causes), but I do donate what little I can to many causes, so I'm somewhat in agreement with this argument, seeing it in the form of all these Republicans who go "that's mean, Mister President, now I'll get back to gently tonguing your balls so you'll be on board when we give rich people a shit ton of money" whenever Trump defends white supremacists or just generally acts shitty toward minorities. Democrats, on the other hand, have been very vigorous in fighting Trump's bigotry...as long as it scores them points on the generic ballot.

Yet racism (as I said before in the racism thread) is so much different now, so let's put it in context of our current political situation. I know a lot of people who I wouldn't classify as racist (I do happen to think everyone's at least a little racist, but in this context, I mean full-out racist), but voted for Trump and happily support him. They get along fine with minorities, but they hate the NFL protests possibly more than North Korea and don't seem to ever want to address the actual issue at the heart of it, instead acting like black players are protesting the anthem to draw attention to their cause of protesting the anthem. Everyone kinda wants to avoid the topic of racism and pretend it's all settled, but there is one giant elephant in the room, by which I mean the current president, and certain rising factions of the GOP that were always there but were at least suppressed (mind you, conservatives aren't the only racists in this country, but they're the only ones whose party is increasingly geared towards it [though Democrats have a lot to answer for in how they've failed minorities through the decades]). If Trump uses a racial slur on live TV, his presidency is over, but a lot of his voters simply apply industrial-strength denial to his appeals to bigotry in the spirit of partisanship or disgust at Washington.

But on the other hand, this type of thinking can--at its logical conclusion--promote an extremism that we're currently seeing today, if for different reasons. Am I supposed to protest against every single thing I disagree with? And if I miraculously obtain the things I'm asking for, presumably many of the citizenry would disagree with me as well and then be obliged to protest until they get what they want? What if the government's not particularly responsive to the needs of its people, such as, say, right now? Not to get too reductive or draw the argument to absurdity, but there needs to be a certain amount of...extremism, I think, is the correct term...in policy until I'd take to the streets in protest and demand change 24/7, which we're getting very close to with Trump. I guess what I'm saying is that there is a value in order, and there's no shame in having priorities far below keeping the lights on. Disorder causes problems for everyone, namely in that a government that's always tearing itself apart at the seams ends up like those constant overthrows and civil wars in certain South American or African countries (which, again, I fear we're not far from).

So at the end of the day, with all that said, I guess the logical place I'd settle on in this debate would be: "I never saw what the big deal was about Full House. It was the blandest of bland sitcoms."
  • 12

Doodle Dee. Snickers
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 2730
Joined: Mon May 06, 2013 8:15 pm
Show rep

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Tue Jan 16, 2018 3:02 am

...
  • 10

User avatar
FaceTheCitizen
TCS Moderator
TCS Moderator
 
Posts: 4553
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:12 pm
Show rep
Title: Thot Patrol

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Tue Jan 16, 2018 3:27 am

And I forgot to say in my bit there: You should be worried about the state of race in this country, and polling consistently shows that most Americans are regardless of how they feel about the president. True, many of those who are worried about race are angry about black people being angry, but it shows, at least, that everyone realizes there's racial tension in this country. We're not quite at the point of shipping minorities out of the countries en masse. As much as people tend toward this narrative that Trump stormed the established order in the primaries and took over with his thoughts on Mexican Rapists, he simply had a dedicated fanbase and the rest of the 200000 serious candidates split the rest of the vote between them for so long that he was able to get through with 30% (seriously, we need runoff primaries if we're gonna start having presidential primaries of 8 billion candidates). He gets his lowest points on race, and frankly gets his worst marks when he acts outside how a president or Republican is expected to act. So we're not there yet.

Yet, to the point of MLK...in Civil Disobedience (sorry, it's coincidentally my most recent completed read and very relevant to the conversation, working on Anna Karenina now) Thoreau also said something to the tune of "We must beware that peaceful protest does not make us sheep". I worry about something similar as well. As I pointed out, Trump coming out and uttering the racial slurs that are almost certainly in his heart would certainly end his presidency...but there's something very wrong when like...20-something percent of the country sees no racism in him going to bat for white supremacists and another ten percent of the country like him for it.

I mentioned in one of those paragraphs that a lot of people that are at least not overtly racist don't seem to care about Trump's...let's just call them 'follies'. I worry about that kind of complacency, as well as Democrats more concerned with winning elections than actually doing anything for minorities. If this goes on as is, someone is going to try to actually do what Trump said he'd do and more. I worry that too many people will laugh it off, then it'll turn out that guy (or girl #womencanberacistdictatorstoo #feminism) is dead serious, or people will just try to keep quiet as it happens. Less of a white supremacy by screaming and yelling and more of one by careful avoidance of the subject in polite conversation.

So that's my flip side of the argument about order. There comes a point where simply ignoring egregious conduct or adverse policy in favor of keeping the established order leads you to...well, for one party, it led them to Trump.
  • 8

Doodle Dee. Snickers
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 2730
Joined: Mon May 06, 2013 8:15 pm
Show rep

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:18 am

  • 0

Image
User avatar
Deathclaw_Puncher
Knight Writer
Knight Writer
 
Posts: 12452
Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:42 pm
Location: Fair Oaks, CA
Show rep
Title: Queen of the Furrets

Re: MLK and the white moderate

Postby A Combustible Lemon » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:11 am

aviel wrote:Creep, MLK's protestors did march on highways.

Ligament, I don't understand your point about the quote. MLK doesn't seem to be criticizing white moderates for supporting his movement only with words. He seems to be objecting to their criticism of his methods. I think this is clearer in the context of the original letter, where he's not demanding that white moderates participate in his protests, but responding to their criticisms of his protests.


I'm saying it's not a very good response to criticisms of tone because it's not a response at all. It just blames white moderates for not caring more. As I mentioned, they don't care more and you can't make them. But every white moderate is a white not actively resisting the civil rights dialogue, a white ready to vote for the party that promotes better civil rights enforcement because it's not a dealbreaker for them. Even as apathetic as they are, they're important.

I don't blame him for lamenting apathy. I'm not blaming him at all, I just think his quotes are used to construct this fake civil rights history where even moderate white people were completely undependable cowards slaved to the status quo, as if calls for respectability and civility have no merit to them at all.
  • 3



WE ARE ALL FLOATING IN THE WINDS OF TIME. BUT YOUR CANDLE WILL FLICKER FOR SOME TIME BEFORE IT GOES OUT -- A LITTLE REWARD FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED. FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT...
User avatar
A Combustible Lemon
TCS Regular
TCS Regular
 
Posts: 486
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:25 pm
Location: The Internet, India
Show rep
Title: Grenadier

Next

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests

cron