Here's hoping I don't turn out to be a white moderate.

[rmd]

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.

Comments

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

Today an interstate highway in Cincinnati is closed, and will remain so for at least a couple of days, because an overpass collapsed. Measure the outrage over that vs. the outrage over the I-93 closure by protesters. I predict that in the former case, most people will grumble a little, then shrug and deal with it. In the latter case, as we've seen so many places, so many white liberals are for the cause as long as all they have to do is click a link on a webpage or maybe write a check for a trivial amount. As soon as something actually costs them, well we just can't be having that.