#mlkweek

On this Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr day, I am reflecting on his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. I am reflecting on the ways in  which Dr. King's image has been co-opted by white moderates. I am reflecting on the ways in which selective editing of his words has lead many to believe that Dr. King advocated for "waiting". They hear the words, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," and they hear him to mean that justice is inevitable. That no matter what we do, the political status of blacks everywhere will eventually get better. That is a myth. Dr. King never meant that justice is inevitable on its own, without tension, without agitation, without resistance, and forcing the hand of the oppressor to move. 

I read Dr. King in the Christian tradition that we worked within. Now, I'm not a Christian and I've never read their bible or studied their faith. But if I understand correctly, from having read Dr. King's work, the promised return of the Christian messiah is not a permission slip for complacency. His teleological understanding of the universe seems to be that becoming a virtuous community was inevitable if each community member upheld their moral duties to one another, not that everything would be alright no matter what we do. 

The secular version of this argument is that justice is not inevitable, but it can be striven towards. Justice is not inevitable, but it is necessary to work for. Justice is not inevitable, but we the marginalised will agitate, educate, and organise ceaselessly for our freedom. You will not stop us, not because the laws of the universe demand it, but because we demand it. Oppression is not the natural order of things, but neither is justice. The natural order of things is neutral- it is us that assigns value to the ways things are. We must not fool ourselves into co-opting the words of Dr. King to feel a free-floating sense of hope, unless it is attached to both a critical social consciousness, and some concrete plans of action. 

The moral arc of the universe will not bend towards anything unless we push it. 

I leave you with my favourite section  of Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. King’s meditation on time:

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in  Texas which said, "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are  in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ  take time to come to earth." 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. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It  comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.