Fear of Open Conflict part 4
There are a lot of lines in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail that I am constantly amazed at how relevant it still feels. What also strikes me is that this isn’t the complete sentence from the letter. Here it is:
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. — MLK, Letter from the Birmingham Jail
“We know through painful experience that…” I’ve always found it curious what gets included or excluded in quotes and history. What I wonder most is, what role the fear of open conflict, right to comfort, and defensiveness play in our telling of history? In my experience expressing concerns of those in a role with the power to change those concerns, I am often met with denial, criticized for “how” I expressed the concerns, and overall a shift from recognizing and addressing the initial concern that was being raised. These experiences often lead me to feeling sad that someone is in such conflict with reality and that they would rather lash out than accept the existence of an issue and inflame a war with not me but reality, truth, and themselves.
Studying history tells me that are in a moment of recycling the previous attempts to address oppression. When you look at the reaction to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in October 1964 58% of people polled approved of the law. November 1964, 68% of people polled said they preferred moderation in enforcement of the law. We know from the Letter From the Birmingham Jail, that Dr. King was already responding to people complaing about how he was protesting and the speed of change that he desired. In 1963, Gallup measure Dr. King with a 41% positive perspection of him. By 1966, the positive perception of him was at 32%. In Jan of 2021, 88% of people polled have a positive opinion of MLK. Have we matured over time and learned our lesson? I sincerely doubt it.
Look at the opinion of Black Lives Matter movent from April 25, 2017 to April 10, 2021. You can see the graph below, courtesy of 538.com for all it’s glory. Even with the recorded murder of George Floyd and a supposed awakening of “wokeness” among white people, support for Black Lives Matter is sitting at 49% opposed and 37% support among white people. Despite all the years of evidence and constant pleas to pay attention to racial issues, we have the characteristics like right to comfort, defensiveness, and fear of open conflict do nothing but uphold the systen that has existed and founded on white supremacists ideas. The longer we deny it the longer it will take for us to resolve the issue.
I am leaving the last words, that followed MLK’s initial quote about freedom below as a reminder of the rest of the context and the sad similarity to our world today.
Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; 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?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.
