A Letter to Martin Luther King - Essay Example

Dear Mr. King, In 1963, you wrote a letter to eight ministers in Birmingham, Alabama who were criticizing you for the actions you had taken to peacefully demonstrate against the unjust segregation laws that were oppressing the black population in the South. At the time, you were one of the 53 people who were arrested and jailed for peacefully protesting after being ordered not to by a court injunction. As you mention in your letter, you are responding directly to the criticisms that these ministers, mostly white, levied against you. They called your actions ‘unwise and untimely’ and felt it was inappropriate for a minister to actively practice civil disobedience and to encourage it within his flock. Throughout your letter, you explain to them why your demonstrations were necessary as a means of bringing in the interest and attention of the northern white people and force change in the laws for the benefit of black citizens of the South. You also indicate why it was appropriate and even incumbent upon you, as a minister, to stand up for the human rights of your people rather than to allow them to continue to be so poorly treated. Finally, you demonstrate your connection with your people by pointing out to these ministers why the timing of your demonstrations had to be now as society had finally reached a boiling point when some action was bound to occur. In your closing words, you criticize these other ministers for not helping you find a peaceful means for the people to express their frustration and to act in the name of human goodness. While it is true that your efforts throughout your life did bring about significant change for the better in getting many of these segregation laws abolished, speaking as a citizen of the 21st century, I regret to tell you that things haven’t really changed all that much. In the 45 years since you wrote your letter, psychologists and sociologists have discovered more and more about the effects of the past upon the reactions of the present within the human mind. Recent investigation has proven that racism is rooted in dysfunctional belief systems resulting from distorted perceptions formed over a period of time as beliefs and practices are passed from one generation to the next. We cannot ignore the significant role of the socio-cultural environment in shaping perceptual patterns. In addition, it is well known that people are inclined to respond on the basis of their own experience when it comes to social interactions and social biases such as racism. Therefore, people who have never experienced racism in a real sense have a tendency to downplay a condition of racism or discrimination. Minorities are more easily affected by racism as it is a more aggravated offense to them. Where you stand racially in a society determines your perspective on the issue. People of the majority in a social context have a propensity to feel that the world is, for the most part, a pretty fair place where people normally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The virtuous are rewarded and evil doers are reprimanded, a conception of a just world resulting from our training as children. The inherent conclusion that can be drawn from that kind of reasoning is that those who are rewarded must be good, and those who suffer, if even from our own discrimination and prejudice, must deserve their fate (Rosado, 1998). If people do not see a situation as threatening to them they may conclude that it is not foreboding to others as well, often because they see the social system as fair, with liberty and justice for all. Racism is an immoral and a social sickness that is difficult to eradicate, because of the selfish predispositions of human nature. When asked to identify the source of socially inappropriate behavior and social anguish, institutional entities including law enforcement, politics and psychiatry have a tendency to fault an individual’s failure to regulate their actions. This presumes, incorrectly, that they consciously chose to become oriented to criminal activity. This common misconception may serve to justify reasoning pertaining to the ruling majority which is, generally speaking, upper class, well-educated, white Christian males whose economic, political and social privileges are dependent on a dominated majority. This privileged class who has historically enjoyed judicial privileges, voting rights and has, and continues to write the laws slanted toward their own interests conceals the realities of a supposed democratic structure. These individuals want to maintain and increase their domination and wealth which suppresses minority rights thus the prosperity and overall growth of society even today. Even without official laws in place, the unfounded discriminatory effect of public policy and administrative practices can in effect prevent the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. This can occur even with a lack of explicit discriminatory intention on the part of officials. “This is often most evident in the administration of social services, education, and public housing to exclude or marginalize members of particular groups. It can also apply to restrictions of the freedom of movement and the right to live in a particular area of ones own country” (Racism and Human Rights, 2001). This starts a vicious loop in which poorly educated children living in high crime neighborhoods enter an unforgiving criminal justice system at an early age and remain unable to escape. At the same time, an unforgiving criminal justice system continues to be fed a negative impression of the race as increasing levels of unemployment as a result of poor education and criminal records place more and more black people on welfare. By restricting where one lives, social service agencies are capable of restricting the very means required for black people to escape the same sort of oppression they lived under at the time you wrote your letter. Children are denied access to quality education as inner city schools are often rated at less quality than those found in the suburbs. It is difficult for these schools to entice quality teachers to classrooms full of disorderly students who have already learned contempt for a system intent on keeping them in their place even as they struggle for their lives in gang-oriented streets where they live without adequate parental supervision. Parents, often undereducated after having come through the same system their children are trapped in today, are forced to work long and difficult hours often in more than one location simply to pay the bills or risk losing a much-needed paycheck. Widespread undocumented and often unproven and illegal discrimination by employers is the main cause of high minority unemployment, contributing to a negative view of the race while placing the family under the control of social services and feeding back into the loop. Affirmative action programs are often presented by employers and politicians as unfair or as favoring minorities, contributing to widespread resentment of the race by the socially dominant whites. This attitude acts to exacerbate popularized resentment and perpetuate racism even as basic human psychology works to perpetuate a perception that the effects of racial discrimination in the new century are not that bad. As a major consequence of the negative opinion continuously reinforced through these practices, most white people are either not aware of or openly condone what has come to be known as racial profiling. This practice holds that black people are more likely to be engaging in some form of criminal activity at any given time than white people. As compared to constituents of the socially dominant faction, ethnic minorities are much more liable to be detained, questioned, and searched by law enforcement officials. Once they have been arrested, minority members are also more likely to suffer police brutality and are more likely to be held in jail while waiting for their trial date instead of having an opportunity to post bond. When tried for a crime, they face a higher probability to be found guilty and are less apt to serve their sentences outside of prison such as serving community service. In addition, they are “more likely to be sentenced to longer prison terms, less likely to be granted parole, and when convicted of capital offenses, they are more likely to be executed, especially for capital offenses against dominants” (Sidaneus & Veniegas, 2000). For many of these people, their involvement with the criminal justice system begins when they are adolescents, thus placing a label upon them that follows them for the rest of their lives. Although the segregation laws of the South are no longer in place as a result of your efforts, and it has become a part of US law that discriminatory practices are legally punishable, in actuality, many black people remain cruelly oppressed by the same operatives that oppressed black people at the time you wrote your letter. Long-held beliefs regarding the black race as somehow inferior to the white race are reinforced by the social effects of economic poverty and poor educational opportunity coupled with intensified scrutiny by the predominantly white male enforcing body. Justified resentment on the part of the black people further feeds into this tension while human psychology works to ensure the white people remain blind to the severity of the issues at hand. What we need in this century is another quality leader such as yourself to help us determine a new and yet still peaceful means of ending this vicious cycle that seems to permanently separate the races. While some progress has been made, all too often things remain lodged within the old status quo. Works Cited King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” (1963). Nobel Prizes. July 23, 2007 “Racism and Human Rights.” Human Rights Watch. (June 22, 2001). May 7, 2008 Rosado, Caleb. Practical Do-Ables for Unlearning Racism. (September/October 1998). May 7, 2008 Sidaneus, Jim & Veniegas, Rosemary C. “Gender and Race Discrimination: The Interactive Nature of Disadvantage.” Reducing Prejudice and Discrimination. Stuart Oskamp (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000: 47-69. Read More