Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Hellianne: "What's something that you think is widely underrated, something that you feel has wonderful qualities that few others appreciate?"
Discussion Thread: DeVos Hearing
The confirmation for Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education, is happening right now. Here's some important background I wrote on DeVos, in case you need to get up to speed: Trump enlists Betsy DeVos to help him destroy public education.
Because she has, truly, been chosen to completely devastate public education in the United States, I thought some of y'all might want a space to talk about the garbage nightmare that her confirmation hearing will be. So here it is!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Bigotry.]
"After I discovered who Trump is and the way that he conducted himself, I was never going to go to the inauguration. I never planned, I never contemplated even going near any of those activities or those events. I don't like the way he has, you know, misled people, the way he has lied; I don't like the way he has disparaged folks; I don't like the way he mimicked and mocked a disabled man; I don't like the way he talked about women and grabbing their private parts. So there's nothing about him that I would want to be involved with. And certainly the inauguration is a way of welcoming in someone to the presidency and honoring them and respecting them. I don't honor him, I don't respect him, and I don't want to be involved with him."—Rep. Maxine Waters, during an epic rant on why Trump is "a danger," demonstrating what unyielding resistance to normalizing Trump looks like.
I've got videos with complete transcripts at Shareblue. I highly recommend watching/reading them in their entirety. Because wow.
On the Marches
[Content Note: Privilege; misogyny.]
I'm feeling energized by the upcoming Women's March on Washington and the Sister Marches to take place on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration.
I still feel fearful, angry, and upset about Trump's electoral college win. I want an independent investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with Russian agents in the 2016 Election (and I want more people to want this). I know that the left continues to experience divisions and that more of us must come together, somehow, to defeat Trump.
But, I'm also hopeful.
Millions of people will effectively be giving voice to the Unity Principles of the Women's March, which are inclusive, incredibly progressive, and in almost direct opposition to what Trump stands for: ending violence, affirming reproductive rights, and protecting LGBTQIA rights, worker's rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice.
I am less inspired by some of the white male chatter about the marches, which I'd also like to address because we'll keep hearing variations of these arguments and ridicule for the next four years.
1) First, we have Christian conservative Rod Dreher, who wrote a piece at The American Conservative mocking the Women's March, titled: "The Left's Identity Politics Poison" (which I won't drive traffic to by linking. But yes, I read TAC regularly. Bubble, what bubble?)
In his own words, Dreher finds intra-left debates about the Women's March and intersectionality "funny." Lots of conservatives do, actually. He writes of the left, "They’re eating each other alive," and his glee about it is practically dripping from the page. Of one activist whom he doesn't know personally he says, "She does not appear to be a happy person." He approvingly cites men on the left who want us to ditch identity politics. He ends by coming back to add an important addendum to his piece: he's now convinced that the left's identity politics "justify the Alt-Right's identity politics," and I think you get the idea.
It's hard to know where to start critiquing a piece like that, really. Cheap shots at a leftist woman? Trenchant! Fighting racism justifies racism? Sure.
So, to take a step back, I know that I am a better progressive feminist because of the debate among, conversation with, and reading of other progressive feminists. We may find these conversations difficult and frustrating at times, but I'm not ashamed of calls among the left to do better. Intersectional, progressive feminism must be our way forward, not a fake "identity-less" leftist movement that invisibilizes identity-based oppression and in many ways parallels the right.
We on the left are, it seems, much more diverse than the white male dominated US right. We will not and do not always agree. I don't expect us to. We may each have our dealbreakers for what we can or cannot accept in an ally, but I do not expect my allies to be perfect and 100% acceptable to me 100% of the time (imagine that!). And, none of this is to say the marches themselves are or will be perfect.
We on the left, unlike the right, do not have the singular goal of upholding (hold onto your pearls, Dreher) hetero cisgender white male Christian supremacy, itself an identity politic. We cannot and do not use this singular goal to rally people who feel historically, culturally, and genetically entitled to supremacy (Yep, I read "Alt-Right" sites too. Bubble, what bubble?).
Our divides on the left will be deeper and more painful than the Trump era's emerging divide on the right: the "Alt-Right"/neo-nazi right's labeling of certain men on the right (like Dreher) "cucks" for not being as openly or sufficiently neo-nazi-ish.
The intent with this divide seems to be to tap into fragile masculinity, shaming men into being deplorable men. So, Dreher and his fans can mock the left but, if a person is now finding things to like about Trump while also spending a bunch of time ridiculing those fighting this deplorable man, it's difficult to imagine posterity looking favorably upon that.
And also, when I march, I'm marching against not only Trump, but the Drehers of the world: everyone who has enabled Trump by voting for him, normalizing him, or even refusing to vote for the only person with the realistic chance to beat him.
2) Secondly, if you're active on Feminist Twitter, you might have seen references to this Tweet:
From there, Chait's commentary descended into a spiral of defensiveness, with him ultimately encouraging "men misinformed by the poorly-chosen name" to attend.I think many men assume the "Women's March" is supposed to be women-only, which is why it was a bad name for the main anti-Trump march. https://t.co/9OTwkBzLEP— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) January 11, 2017
Many women on Twitter rightly took issue with this advice. I certainly did. My point isn't that the left should not debate the name, but that, for one, the name was debated by people on the left who have been planning the March since the election.
Two, I think many women experience Clinton's electoral college loss as a deeply painful experience, as women, and an affirmation of widespread misogyny. Why not, then, call it the Women's March - and have the March itself be inclusive of all who support its platform? Is it beyond us to expect men on the left to have empathy and understanding for this identity-based experience that many women have?
Women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBT people are set to be uniquely oppressed under the Trump regime. Yet, we've seen so many male-authored pieces showing us how little the expectations are for white men with respect to social justice activism: we must have all the empathy for them, but never the reverse. We must tolerate the intolerant even if they hate us and mock our safe spaces!
(Dreher himself mocks liberal safe spaces on the weekly, even as he promotes his book which advocates for Christians to carve out safe enclaves in society so they don't have to bake cakes for gay couples if they don't want to)
And, even though Chait, who is described as a progressive, put no ostensible effort into helping plan, organize, fund, or participate in the March, he's here in the final hour to What about the menz all over the name even though literally all it takes to find out whether men are welcome is to check out the March's official website, which says all are invited.
There is a whole anti-feminist movement on the Internet that calls itself a men's movement but does almost nothing tangible for men. All it does is bash feminists for supposedly not doing enough for men because they see activism as free labor women are just supposed to do for other people, but apparently not for ourselves. Chait's statements fit into that context, even if not intentional. This isn't to say he's a horrible person. I really can't and won't speak to that.
It's more that, since November 8, 2016, I've been trying to wrap my head around the observable fact that so many people on the right are willing to blow up the world because of white male fragility. It is a thin-skinned, angry fragility that demands the erasure of identity politics, that equates identity politics of the left with the white male supremacy of the right, and that engages in the rank victim-blaming that says calling out bigotry is worse than bigotry itself.
They will. blow. up. the. fucking. world. before having empathy for others or believing they're complicit in some serious oppression. And we're the snowflakes?
But, I am also having some difficulty with the white male moderates, liberals, progressives, and even decent conservatives I see who are bystanders to it all. Or, if they do speak, they speak as "objective observer" critics of how marginalized people are resisting in non-approved ways. Donald Trump is inaugurated this week and you're a progressive white man who thinks now is an opportune time to come at the grassroots Women's March organizers on Twitter about the name of the thing they organized as part of the resistance?
What? No.
Is it that, at some level Trump's rhetoric resonates with many white men across the political spectrum? Why yes, maybe identity politics and political correctness have gone too far! They should be nicer to us about all this! What is men's place in the world, and in politics, if we aren't leading all things all the time?
One point which seems important for white people to remember, especially men and especially now, is that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had some words to say about the white moderate:
"...[W]ho 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 can't agree with your methods of direct action;' who paternalistically feels [they] can set the timetable for another [person's] freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'"Here, the argument is that it is those who are uniquely oppressed under a regime who ought to set the terms of the resistance, because it is their/our dignity at stake.
To end, I do not personally know the organizers of the Women's March, but I understand they've been working hard since the election to make it happen (Vogue has profiled some of the organizers). I'm grateful for their efforts and proud of what they've done.
I will take a look at the Guiding Principles periodically throughout the week leading up to the March:
"Women’s rights are human rights, regardless of a woman’s race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, sexual identity, gender expression, economic status, age or disability. We practice empathy with the intent to learn about the intersecting identities of each other. We will suspend our first judgement and do our best to lead without ego. We follow the principles of Kingian nonviolence...."I will continue to hope, too, that Dr. King was right when he said, "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." We have a lot of work to do.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In More SHOCKING News...
It turns out that Trump's promise of no new international deals while he's president was complete codswallop:
[Team Trump] has remarkably found yet another ethics loophole, to justify announcing the expansion of Trump's Scottish golf resort, mere days after having promised there would be no new international deals struck by the Trump Organization.My apologies for forgetting to warn you to take to your fainting couches before I delivered this shocking news. Please report immediately to Shakesville HQ if you are in urgent need of smelling salts for an impending swoon.
Trump officials said the plans for the Trump International Golf Course Scotland in Aberdeenshire – likely to immediately involve extending its boutique hotel and building a second 18-hole golf course – did not conflict with his promise not to pursue new or "pending" deals outside the US.If you parse that carefully, it essentially means that deals arising from any existing part of his business do not count, so long as someone from the organization is willing to say the deal was in the works up until Inauguration Day.
"Implementing future phasing of existing properties does not constitute a new transaction so we intend to proceed," a Trump Organization spokeswoman told the Guardian.
The expansion plans could see the resort grow substantially, with a new 450-room five-star hotel, timeshare complex and private housing estate. This would greatly increase the value to the Trump Organization of an investment on which Trump originally boasted he would spend up to £1bn.
That is one big loophole.
Unpopular President-elect Is Embarrassingly Unpopular
In the two months since I observed that Donald Trump won the Electoral College, but is losing by every other metric, his then-terrible 42 percent favorability rating has dropped to an even worse 40 percent in the new Washington Post-ABC News poll.More at the link!
...In the most recent Quinnipiac poll, his Cabinet nominees fare even more poorly: Only 30 percent of respondents approve of Trump's Cabinet choices.
His dreadful nominees are certainly part of the reason that his overall transition continues to garner remarkably low support, too, with the new CNN/ORC poll finding him with a paltry 40 percent approval for his transition, less than half the approval President Obama had at this same point.
...[N]othing more pointedly calls into question his legitimacy than his abysmal favorability numbers. The people, and more of them every day, do not support this president-elect, his nominees, or his plans. And he has failed to respond like a legitimate president would: By changing his strategy so that he can effectively govern.
If Trump wants We the People to view him as a legitimate president, then he ought to start behaving like one.
Wrong Again, Trump!
I'm sure you'll be SHOCKED to hear it, but Trump was wrong yet again when he claimed that Americans didn't care whether he released his tax returns now that he won the election: "A new ABC News/Washington Post poll has found that seventy-four percent of respondents said he should release his tax returns, including 49 percent of his own supporters."
.@realDonaldTrump is so wrong he's like a wrong thing made of wrong parts with lots of little wrong bits all over it https://t.co/jACFL8eP4A
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
.@realDonaldTrump @Shareblue I guess he's using the same math he uses when he calculates that he won in a "landslide."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker jeanology: "What brings you comfort when you're feeling hopeless? It could be a train of thought, a relationship, a favorite food, or anything else that helps you feel better."
Quote of the Day
"I've had all of the major classified briefings. I have been astonished at what has been a two-year effort at Russia to spearfish, to hack, to provide disinformation, propaganda, wherever it really could."—Senator Dianne Feinstein, making it clear that she knows damn well what's going on, because she has access to information that not all of us have. Right on. Thank you, Senator.
Dear Corporate Media: Please Stop. Love, Liss
There is no reason to believe Trump's promise to "insure everybody." (Or give him headlines for it.) He will reverse course in short order.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
In the last two days, he has reversed course on not making any new international deals and visiting the African American History Museum.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
But not before he got BIG HEADLINES about promising no new international deals and about visiting the AAHM.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
The corporate media HAS to stop playing along with this game.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
If it sounds like an incredibly unlikely promise based on literally everything else we know about him, IT IS. And it will be reversed.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
But the reversal will never, ever, get as much fanfare as the original headline. Which is why this is a very dangerous manipulation to abet.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 16, 2017
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
NOPE
[Content Note: White supremacy.]
I've got a new piece at Shareblue about Trump's infuriating MLK Day tweet: "Trump is apparently unaware Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an opponent of racism."
If Trump had only used the last days to slander Lewis with dog-whistled racism, that would make his tweet breathtaking in its aggressive temerity, but Trump's entire adult life has been an exercise in leveraging and empowering white supremacy — from his housing discrimination against Black people; to his campaign to reinstate the death penalty in New York to execute five teenagers, four Black and one Latino, who were wrongly convicted; to his birtherism conspiracy-mongering against President Obama; to his elevation of people with ties to white supremacy in his incoming administration.As always, there is more at the link.
...Now he tells us: "Honor him for being the great man that he was!"
It is advice that Trump should take himself — although I am not sure how he would even begin, short of building a time machine and erasing his history of relentless racist bigotry with a giant do-over.
Recommended Reading from Around the Series of Tubes
Spoiler Alert: I'm going to start with some good news, but it's gonna go downhill from there quick, lolsob. But there's good news at the end, too! PROMISE!
Laila Kearney at Reuters: Lady Liberty shown as Black woman on U.S. coin for first time.
[Content Note: Racism] Charles M. Blow at the New York Times: John's gospel of Trump's illegitimacy.
[CN: War on agency] Christine Grimaldi at Rewire: Breaking: Total abortion ban debuts in Congress.
[CN: Lack of affordable healthcare] Cameron Ziegler at the New York Times: Without Obamacare, I will get sicker, faster, until I die.
Peter J. Boyer at Esquire: The Trump Administration may evict the press from the White House.
Alison R. Parker at Shareblue: Coast to coast, protests against Trump are already gaining momentum.
Andy Towle at Towleroad: Alec Baldwin destroys Donald Trump in SNL 'Press Conference' cold open.
Rhian Daly at NME: Tom Hardy says Mad Max: Fury Road sequel is "a matter of when." Look at Tom Hardy pointing out that there are Furiosa saga options, too, even though he wasn't asked about her character! Oh, Tom Hardy, I love you.
I Take Up Space in Solidarity with Rep. John Lewis
[Content Note: Racism; authoritarianism.]
On Friday, I noted that civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis had said he would not be attending Donald Trump's inauguration, because he doesn't view Trump's presidency as legitimate, owing to Russian interference in the election, to say nothing of Trump's bigotry.
Over the weekend, Trump kicked off Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend by slandering Lewis on Twitter. In a piece I co-wrote with Tommy Christopher for Shareblue, I noted:
Every American has the right — and the responsibility — to hold the president to account. That Trump disagrees with this most basic premise of vibrant democracy is itself reason to question the legitimacy of his presidency. A president who does not respect the rights guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be trusted to represent the values of the nation.A flood of Democrats outpoured support for Lewis, a show of solidarity which was shamelessly denounced by Trump opponents as reflexive partisanship. In response to that wildly misplaced criticism, I wrote: We fight for Rep. John Lewis because he has fought for us.
...It is a rich irony that Trump, who peddled racist lies in order to try to delegitimize the nation's first Black president, is now outraged that a Civil Rights Hero would, using facts, state his belief that Trump's presidency is not legitimate.
The strong and widespread support for Lewis is now being denounced by Democratic opponents as partisan politicking. This could not be more wrong.There is, as always, more at the link.
It is wrong because there is nothing stopping Congressional Republicans from showing their support for their colleague Lewis, except their own craven indecency. It is not a reflection of Democrats' partisanship that they are the only ones exhibiting solidarity for an American patriot, but of Republicans' partisanship that they do not feel obliged to do the same.
It is wrong because the concerns Lewis has that prompted his comments about Trump's legitimacy — Russian interference in the election, for one — are not partisan issues, irrespective of many Republicans' indifference to their gravity.
And it is wrong, most importantly, because those of us who take up space in solidarity with Lewis are not doing so because we are Democrats. That has it precisely backwards. We are Democrats because of people like Rep. John Lewis.
We are Democrats, in part, because of the men and women who are the standard-bearers of the Democratic Party, who have modeled for us what principled resistance and progressive values look like. We found a home with his party because people like Lewis not only laid the foundation, but built the walls and fitted the roof and laid the path to the front door of that home.
In a final insult, Trump's incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos to further criticize Lewis, and brazenly advocated quashing dissent against Trump, admonishing President Obama to "step up and get his people in line, and tell them to grow up and accept the fact that they lost the election."
As I noted at the link:
It is deeply chilling that the official position of the incoming Trump administration is that dissent should be disallowed. That is not the way a democracy is meant to work. That is the way dictatorships work.Horrifying and unsurprising, given every single thing we've seen from Trump, his staff, his surrogates, and his supporters.
Citizens of a democratic country cannot and should not be expected to "get in line" behind a politician with whom they disagree. If Trump did not want to be criticized, then perhaps he should have sought a different line of work than leader of a diverse democratic nation of more than 300 million people, with a Constitutional right to dissent and an implicit duty to hold their leaders to account.
...Those of us who unyieldingly reject the legitimacy of Trump's presidency are not doing so just because we do not like Donald Trump; we are doing so because we deeply value and desperately want to preserve our democracy.
That Priebus' response to that is to deploy a sickening argument advocating a further erosion of democratic principles is horrifying.
If that isn't reason to resist, in every way possible, I don't know what possibly could be.
I take up space in solidarity with Rep. John Lewis, a genuine American hero and patriot, his colleagues who will join him in boycotting the inaugural, and everyone else who has resolved to resist Trump and the normalization of his rank hostility to our basic democratic principles.
Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail
[Content Note: Descriptions of racism.]
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.
Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.
Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. 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. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.
Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?
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.
Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that 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." 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.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle--have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.
But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.
I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. 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 Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"
Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.
It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
16 April 1963
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
