MLK's Birmingham Jail letter is not a mere Talking Point

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Tue Aug 13, 2013, 01:54 AM - Edit history (8)

Martin Luther King Jr. was a rule-breaking, trouble-causing firebrand who was what we today would call a leftist, not an innocuous moderate. Very anti-war. Very pro-higher wages. Economic justice. Labor organization. Solid very progressive stuff.

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

(All quotes here are from the famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963)
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

There is a co-opted modern image of him (in some eyes) as a Christian martyr beatific in his passivity. That is, IMO, an historical revision perpetrated to make his memory a tool for the modern status quo to wield against dissent. "Any dissent scarier than our warm and fuzzy fantasy of MLK is out of bounds."

But MLK was not Forest Gump stumbling through history armed with only good intentions. He was a brilliant activist seeking results through smart tactics.

How did Martin Luther King feel about breaking the law to achieve moral ends?

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.

Clearly MLK did not picture himself comforting one Jew in Nazi Germany then turning himself in. That would be like transporting one slave on the underground railroad and turning ones-self in. It would be stupid and immoral. It would mean you could not comfort the second Jew, could not transport the second slave. I hope we can stipulate that MLK did not mean to say that surrendering to the Nazi authorities was the way to go.

So where does the, "MLK said you have to do the time or it doesn't count" part come from?

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.

Ah... "and with a willingness to accept the penalty." What did King mean by that, exactly? Should one who comforted a Jew have been willing to be hung for it? He must be willing to take that risk —nobody doubts that— but was he really required to turn himself in to the Nazi authorities? King obviously did not mean that. Perhaps "willingness" is like a soldier being "willing" to die for his country. That does not mean that any soldier who survives a war failed in his duty. But if King was saying nobody should do a crime who isn't willing to face the punishment *if caught* that would be rather dumb. If he gets caught then his willingness is irrelevant since the punishment will come with or without his willingness.

I think the answer to the puzzle is that there is no real puzzle...

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.

Aha! DO X in order to accomplish Y. Accepting imprisonment is a means to an end.

When there is a large part of the population that is, or could be, somewhat on your side, you can force them into a decision by your martyrdom. The spectacle of your example will shame them. They will not be able to maintain a comfortably inconsistent position.

Your martyrdom is not because you deserve to be punished. It is a TACTIC. A means to an end.

And it is optimal form, when using that passive-resistance and non-violent civil disobedience tactic set, to submit to the injustice because of the effect doing so will have in the conscience of the community.

King describes a tactic for protesting unjust laws that much of society would also generally think are unjust if forced to think about it at all. It is hard to make moral sense of the British laws forbidding Indians to glean salt from the ocean, or make their own cloth. There is nothing obviously wicked about those activities, just as there is nothing wicked about an elderly black woman wanting to rest her feet on a busor King himself marching peacefuly after being denied a parade permit because of his race and agenda. Such facially unjust laws are prime targets for classic non-violent civil disobedience.

The cops will look worse for enforcing the law than the protestors look for violating it.

Indian salt-protestors were not in it for the salt. They went to the beach to glean salt for the purpose of being hit in the face with a rifle butt. It had the effect of making British moderates (and the soldiers) think poorly of British policy, and to encourage British people to want to wash their hands of India. (Troubling their beautiful minds and all.)

The objective was to be punished for breaking a morally defective law. (The UK sold salt and the Indians were boycotting it. Collecting sea-salt was a way around the boycott so the UK, stupidly, outlawed picking up salt you found on the ground.)

Again... "in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice." In order to... for the purpose of. This is a plan of action, not a moral definition of the scope of all human activity.

And nobody thinks that Gandhi was eager for Indian women who gleaned salt late at night when there wasn't a protest going on needed to have their faces broken because he just respected the law so much!

Doctor King was writing an Open Letter in response to a previous open letter from a council of white preachers that condemned his actions in Birmingham. King was characterizing the particular form of the protest he had just been arrested for, and had just been attacked for in the white ministers' letter, as not respecting the law. And the tactic of civil disobedience done, "in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice," is a political act and part of the tactic is that you bend over backward to impress the community as someone good and pure and harmless and respectful. That's kind of basic.

The letter was, like the protest, a political act, not a theological revelation. Non-violence is a moral consideration AND a tactic. Lining up to be arrested is, however, just a tactic... and sometimes a very good one.

And equally to the point, King was speaking for himself. He was saying that HE had shown respect for the law by breaking it to make a point, not to gain thereby, like robbing a bank.

If I, being less eloquent, had expressed the same general idea I might have said, "I'm in freaking jail. How much more respect for law can there be?"

And most of all... let's be real. Protestors submit to punishment to advance political ends, not because their conscience and respect for the law just wouldn't allow them any peace if they got away with the crime of marching without a parade permit.

________

Somehow this all got twisted into a campaign to claim that MLK, were he alive today, would demand that Edward Snowden turn himself in to face trial in the United States.

You have probably already noticed that one could support all kinds of things with selective sentences from this letter. We saw, for instance, that a lack of respect for law woud be terrible because it would lead to anarchy... but white moderates are a problem because they favor order over justice. There is considerable nuance here.

And plucking a line out to suggest Snowden must turn himself in... well, we already know, I hope, that King wasn't saying the Hungarian dissidents he said he would have aided really needed to turn themselves in to the KGB, but he stipulated that they broke the law.

And the effort to press the memory of King into service as ghostly Snowden-hater is doubly peculiar since Edward Snowden was not engaged in passive resistance or even civil disobedience. He acted in a similar tradition only insofar as he set what is right, in his view, above the law.

He was not protesting our unfair laws against leaking classified information. Read that twice if need be... He was not protesting our unfair laws against leaking classified information.

He was also not gleaning salt or sitting on a bus or blocking traffic or refusing to pay a tax to fund a war.

He broke laws not for the purpose of breaking laws, but because breaking them was necessary to some OTHER purpose that he considered sufficiently valuable that it warranted doing something illegal.

If you see a dog in a locked car on a hot day and you break a window to le the dog out you are not protesting laws against vandalizing cars. Your action is not civil disobedience, it is acheiving the speciffic end of getting the dog cooler air.

Snowden may have been very wrong in his reasoning or priorities or moral code, but he was seeking the publication of certain information and it happened to be illegal to do so.

And since he was not protesting the laws he broke it makes no sense to try to hammer him into a framework that King and Gandhi employed to good effect to arouse the community against unjust laws.

The ACTION by Snowden that would "arouse the community" against injustice would be publishing the documents, not his arrest or trial. Who would favor NSA policy but then come to disfavor it only because Snowden was arrested? Maybe some of those people who send marriage propossals to people on death row, but most of us value or freedoms, or do not value them, independent of whether Snowden is arrested.

The public would be just as alarmed, or just as disinterested, whether Snowden stole these documents or some bozo in the NSA mailroom accidentally mailed them to the Guardian. The documents upset people, or not, for what they say.

I think it is proper that Snowden is charged with a lot of crimes, since laws on the books should be evenly applied. (Exceptions for “good guys” leads to a political definition of “good guys” and that is not a good road to be on.) And I think that jury nullification, or a judge giving a light sentence, or a presidential pardon would be okay by me... but I would not expect them.

And I think it is unexceptional that Snowden doesn’t feel like going to jail forever, or defending himself against charges. Why? To what purpose? Going to jail would not advance the objective of the action, which was the exposure of some documents.

Isn’t it interesting that the people who want him to turn himself in are the people most angry with him? So it is not a matter of a civil disobedience tactic for achieving change that he is doing wrong, thereby hurting the cause. Those who support the cause don’t want him to turn himself in! Think about it. Which side wants to advance whatever Snowden was trying to accomplish? Which side wants him to stand trial? Disingenuous isn't a river in Egypt.
________

The crimes of Snowden and their aftermath have very little to do with Birmingham, or Nazi Germany, and everything to do with Daniel Ellsberg.

Ellsberg had access to information about the Vietnam War. He knew the public was being deceived. He thought the public should know the truth.

He felt strongly enough that the public should know that he arranged for the information to be published, despite risk to himself. This happened to be against the law because the material was classified. But the goal was to expose the content, not to challenge classification categorically. And that is that is that.

Ellsberg going to prison would not have made the Pentagon Papers any more published than they were. And going to prison would not make the Snowden documents any more published.

The good sought (public exposure) is not advanced by surrendering to authorities for trial.

On the other hand, if Martin Luther King had fled police and later published "A Letter from the Birmingham Hyatt-Regency" it would have been an inferior tactic. King's arrest did advance his goals. (I was making a joke there. I know that no fancy hotel in 1963 Birminham would have admited King or any other black guest.)

The simplest way to put this is, if you have a goal you don't martyr yourself just out of masochism, you martyr yourself as a tactic if it advances a goal.

MLK was very good at advancing goals, and if an omniscient being had come down and said, "Black people will achieve legal equality faster if you keep out of jail," then MLK would have kept out of jail.

Tactics advance objectives. They are not ends unto themselves.

[liberal_at_heart]

1. very thought provoking thread cthulu2016.

[JaneyVee]

2. Who said anything about going to jail? I'd rather him come home and defend his actions

In a court of law. Take it to the courts and let the public hear the arguments of the case. Perhaps even be acquitted. So while jail may not make people change their mind, hearing the defense arguments sure as hell could. Also, to hear the NSAs arguments based on the merits. The reporting and media have been so god awful on this topic no one knows anything for sure. Time to hear the actual facts. Plus, the tactic Greenwald is using is incredibly amateur. It's embarrassing watching him live in his penthouse apartment, calling people names on twitter, and acting childish while Snowden rots in Russia. Snowden is being used and manipulated.