A Reminder for Us All

Truth is truth, and it will always be truth

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 siblings.

I must make two honest confessions to you, dear ones.

First, I must confess that over the past few years, I have been gravely disappointed with moderates.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the great stumbling block for those of us working towards our collective liberation is not MAGA or anti-woke-ness, but moderates:

...who are more devoted to "order" than to justice;
...who prefer a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice;
...who constantly say to us, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods;"
... who paternalistically believe they can set the timetable for others' freedom;
...who live by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advise us to wait for a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that people would understand law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that, when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams blocking the flow of social progress.

I had hoped that people would understand the present tension is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace... to a substantive and positive peace, in which all human beings will respect the dignity and worth of every other human being.

Actually, we who engage in work for equity, justice, and collective liberation are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out into the open, where it can be seen and dealt with... and transformed.

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 — even with all the tension its exposure creates — to the light of human conscience... and the air of national opinion... before it can be cured.

- Lightly adapted to speak to our present moment, from the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior's Letter from Birmingham Jail