3 Features of White Moderates in the Letter From a Birmingham Jail

The problem of racial division is deeper than the many issues that occupy the news: the problem is in how we view ourselves and one another. Our struggles to have healthy conversations about race is an identity problem, not just a linguistic or political problem.

This identity problem is what Martin Luther King Jr. saw in his day: that White moderates who position themselves between Black people and White deniers of racism did not — but should have — seen themselves as a part of racial conflict. The role of the White moderate does not help mediate conflict, it exacerbates it.

It’s worth taking a close look at King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail to understand what he saw in White moderates. There are 3 primary features of White moderates that King points out: normalizing the status quo, prioritizing abstractions over actions, and keeping their eyes on White people rather than on Black people.

WHITE MODERATES NORMALIZE THE STATUS QUO

King notes that those who opposed his actions in Birmingham had called his actions “unwise and untimely”. They thought the manner of action was unhelpful and hasty, and even extreme, which caused King to question his position:

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.

But then King considered Christ:

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.

White moderates had framed King’s work as extremist, when they should have treated love and justice as normative for Christians. They had instead subtly characterized the oppressive social status quo of their context as normal when, for Christians, love and justice are to be normal. They preferred and normalized “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice”.

In normalizing the status quo and characterizing justice as extreme, the White moderates were normalizing injustice.

WHITE MODERATES PRIORITIZE ABSTRACTIONS OVER ACTIONS

King also argues that the White moderate has a strong eye for obeying existing rules, often to the ignorance of whether the law is just or unjust. About this, King says that

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.

He points to the example of permits:

[T]here 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.

Laws about permits become a problem in their use against the protests of Black people, because the White moderate treats the letter of the law as more important than the actual results of oppression. King points this out about White moderates repeatedly: they are “more devoted to “order” than to justice”, they say “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”, they live “by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.””

At every turn, the White moderate is valuing an abstraction over the actions necessary to expose and oppose oppression. Ethereal ideas are prioritized over the real-world experiences of Black people.

WHITE MODERATES KEEP THEIR EYES ON WHITE PEOPLE, NOT BLACK PEOPLE

The first two issues of normalizing the status quo, and prioritizing abstractions over actions point to a third and deeply insidious feature of White moderates which is that they only really have eyes for White people, not Black people. King lambasts these moderates for their hypocrisy, saying,

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.

The White moderate “paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom” and “refuse[s] to understand the freedom movement” while “misrepresenting its leaders.”

This inexcusable social ignorance is rooted in an inexcusable theological ignorance: “I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” “

Despite this ignorance of Black people, King expresses confidence in God’s judgement:

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.

KNOWING WHO WE ARE

Being able to have healthy conversations about race requires that we know who we are, and who we are talking about, in order to avoid the pitfalls of the White moderates who condemned Martin Luther King’s fight for justice. Without knowing who we are, we will repeat the failures of the past, and ultimately exacerbate racial division rather than heal it.