It has been ages since I wrote something in this blog. I don't think the time has yet past for commentary. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This holiday is always a day that should provide cause for reflection, perhaps more so now than in the relatively recent past. I am sure the digital world will be flooded with quotes from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech," which, if not made in bad faith, certainly miss the point Dr. King was trying to make. And when you see the famous quote, please do judge those who cite it (and in whose defense it is cited) based on the actual content of their character. Judge their malice and bitterness for what it is. Be color blind in your assessment of intolerance, hatred, and contempt for constitutional rights.
I have always been drawn instead to Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" because it illustrates his courage and clearly demonstrates the immorality of doing nothing when confronted with injustice. In fact, I think I understate matters because the moderate clergy to whom the letter is addressed were guilty of more than mere nonaction but instead of demanding adherence to an order that was by its nature oppressive. The call for civility and politeness to which Dr. King's letter responded has eerie echoes today and should similarly be regarded for what it is: a defense of injustice.
Of particular relevance today is Dr. King's discussion of just and unjust laws. In it, he writes:
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?
While Dr. King's discussion of just and unjust laws centers around segregation, his mention of Martin Buber, of substituting an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship is apt today. That is in fact what we are seeing in the words and actions of federal authorities. There is nothing wrong with or inherently bad in immigration law as a principal and few, if any, would advocate for uncontrolled borders. Nevertheless, the action of federal immigration authorities is unjust when it regards those against whom it seeks to enforce the law as less than human, as lacking moral standing or value. When persons against whom federal immigration police powers are seen as "its," as less than human, the constitutional protection of due process and prohibition against summary punishment (which is always cruel and unusual) become at best inconveniences that need not be adhered to. We are seeing the effects of this today in the lawlessness of ICE agents. Dr. King was right to point out that segregation was "morally wrong and sinful" as is any legal action that disregards the constitution. In this respect, his message in the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is timeless.
This is of course not the only thing Dr. King wrote in the letter. What strikes me is his complaint against moderates:
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...
In this moment, those who are more devoted to order than justice, who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of justice, are indeed disappointing. Such caution and inaction in fraught times, is as, Dr. King points out, more than disappointing, though. Inaction in the face of injustice is immoral and deplorable. Dr. King states it better than I ever could:
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 ... is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace... to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
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.
I fear that this generation will also have to repent, though many good people are choosing not to remain silent. This is heartening, especially on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Nevertheless, the power of the state is the ultimate power and it will not change without continued resistance, criticism, and demands for justice, for due process, for treating all persons subject to its reach with dignity. All of us who believe in human dignity have a part to play, however small individually.
"The time is always ripe to do right." Do what you can. Demand all persons be treated fairly, with respect, and be afforded the legal protections that the Constitution and the laws of this nation extend to everyone, regardless of status. To paraphrase Dr. King, one day the nation will know that the protesters and observers and protectors and video recorders were "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." Let this be the content of our character.
