Shutdown latest: Jon Stewart roasts Democrats for ‘world-class collapse’
www.independent.co.uk
Daily Show host rebukes opposition as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer faces calls to resign
  • DahGangalang@infosec.pubEnglish
    171·
    2 days ago

    Full quote:

    The white liberal must rid himself of the notion that there can be a tensionless transition from the old order of injustice to the new order of justice. Two things are clear to me, and I hope they are clear to white liberals. One is that the Negro cannot achieve emancipation through violent rebellion. The other is that the Negro cannot achieve emancipation by passively waiting for the white race voluntarily to grant it to him. The Negro has not gained a single right in America without persistent pressure and agitation. However lamentable it may seem, the Negro is now convinced that white America will never admit him to equal rights unless it is coerced into doing it.

    Nonviolent coercion always brings tension to the surface. This tension, however, must not be seen as destructive. There is a kind of tension that is both healthy and necessary for growth. Society needs nonviolent gadflies to bring its tensions into the open and force its citizens to confront the ugliness of their prejudices and the tragedy of their racism.

    It is important for the liberal to see that the oppressed person who agitates for his rights is not the creator of tension. He merely brings out the hidden tension that is already alive.

    – Martin Luther King Jr., Found Here

    Edit: added link from whence I am quoting.

    Worth noting: OP Another User responded with a different quote that largely captures the same meaning, also from MLK.

    • theoneandonlyeggboi@lemmings.worldEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      That’s not the quote.

      Here it is:

      First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”