Thread by @rasmansa

Let's do a thread because I've wanted to address this for a while now.

On civil rights, today's "centrist liberals" are too often the same as the 60s "white moderates" that MLK talked about.

https://twitter.com/arthurcdent/status/1079864676555444224

One of my favorite pieces of 60s civil rights era writing is MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I try to read it each year. It's a great reminder of effective protest tactics and soft allies.

africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/L…

In the letter MLK gives his justification for "direct action", which in modern English is disruptive protests.

The disruption is the point. The anger "on the other side" is the point. Their discomfort is the point.

MLK and other activists took this really far. They did things which today even the biggest "SJW" activists would consider extreme. They intentionally put children in harm's way.

They took kids out of school, and put them on the front lines of a protest they knew would get violent. Not only that, they were counting on it getting violent. Some activists thought it was too far, but some thought it worth it.

This was in Birmingham.

Doing that cost MLK a lot of approval points. A lot of his friends and allies thought he and the movement had gone too far. "Children? Why would they use children?!"

MLK and the other activists did this *after* he wrote the letter. The cause for the letter? Several liberal clergy wrote MLK a letter asking him not to cause trouble, to instead give them room to work through the political process, to talk, to convince, to change minds.

He went off on them. He was nice about it, but he told them they were soft, called out their motivations and told them to back off.

"We agree with your goals" they said.
"Nah..." MLK responded (paraphrase)

He didn't just hit them there, no. He called them worse than the KKK. That's right, MLK thought the soft centrist middle was a bigger problem than the open enemy.

Now spring forward 50 years. Today's activists are fighting a lot of the same issues (see this image, that's BLM right there).

Fortunately, these activists today are *less* radical. They still disrupt, a lot. They still say things that are upsetting to say the least.

Yet today, we constantly see liberal allies, and moderates, who swear to high heavens that they agree with the goals of civil rights groups (I'm not just talking about black rights here either), but rarely if ever can be seen doing anything to help.

I venture they are worse even, because so many of them can instead be found publicly condemning activists, while justifying their own silence at the currently happening actions of the alt-right (KKK rebrand)

If only they were only silent...

Activists aren't perfect. They make lots of mistakes. They do lots of things worth criticizing. Make sure you have that resume for criticism.

On a lot of social justice issues I have no resume at all. My tweets and retweets here and there are at least an attempt at solidarity, but let's be honest, I'm complicit in a lot of bad things done in my name.

So I try to take a seat more, listen, and learn.

Those in the struggle will disagree. MLK, SNCC, Malcolm X, Black Panthers, NAACP and others all disagreed at times. Today's groups disagree with each other.

If we're too lazy to act but have an opinion on their actions, maybe we could sit down and support the group we like.

To summarize, that MLK guy really was pretty aggressive.

If you're going to be a moderate who does nothing to disrupt evil, accept your complicity and sit down.

Better yet, stand up and do the work.