Plenty.
When reading the bookWhy We Can’t Wait, I was amazed at how little of the 61-year-old book was obsolete. Dr. Martin Luther King’s stances on what would become DEI and affirmative action, policing, the moderate white voter, persistent poverty, and tokenism could have been written today.
As I read the book, I found myself bringing my own lived experience politically, economically, and culturally to the book AND finding answers. Pretty soon, it morphed into an in-head interview. That interview is below. I have not edited Dr. King’s words, but the questions are my own.
Thank you, Dr King, for being here today. Let’s start by discussing the feeling in the country today. Why are people so many people angry? It feels as if America is a powder keg that could explode at any time
The livelihood of millions has dwindled down to a frightening fraction because the unskilled and semiskilled jobs they filled have disappeared. In that separate culture of poverty….an economic depression rages today. (pg 135)
Why do poor whites and the white working class continue to vote Republican, generation after generation?
Many poor whites, however, were the derivative victims of slavery. As long as labor was cheapened by the involuntary servitude of the black man, the freedom of white labor, especially in the South, was little more than a myth. It was free only to bargain from the depressed based imposed by slavery upon the whole labor market ….To this day, the white poor also suffer deprivation and the humiliation of poverty if not of color….It corrupts their lives, frustrates their opportunities, and withers their education. In one sense, it is more evil for them because it has confused so many by prejudice that they have supported their own oppressors. (pg 145)
What do you say about the disaffected youth or those who don’t vote?
The Negroes’ real problem has been that they have seldom had adequate choices. Political life, as a rule, did not attract the best elements of the Negro community, and white candidate who represented their views were few and far between. However, in avoiding the trap of domination by unworthy leaders, Negroes fell into the bog of political inactivity. They avoided victimization by any political group by withholding a significant commitment to any organization or individual. The price they paid was reflected in the meager influence they could exercise for a positive program. (Pg 156)
Before you died, you were launching a war on poverty. Why did it never materialize in any great strength?
[Unfortunately] the need for immediate change [is] more urgently felt and more bitterly realized by the Negro than by exploited whites. As individuals, the whites could better their situation without the barrier that society places in front of a man whose racial identification by color is inescapable. Moreover, the underprivileged southern whites saw the color that separated them from Negroes more clearly than they saw the circumstances that bound them together in mutual interest. (pg 33)
What do you think of the calls for Black America’s support since the election and increasingly after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president?
Conversely, those who deny us their support should not feel that no one will get our help, but instead, they must understand that when they spurn us, it is likely not only that they will lose, but their opponent will gain. (pg 164)
Why are so many people willing to say that DEI has done its job?
There were two and one-half times as many jobless Negroes as whites in 1963, and their median income was half that of the white man. Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice. (pg 21)
After racial events such as Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, or George Floyd, people from both sides want to have “the conversation,” but lasting change never comes from them. Why is that?
White people in the South may never fully know the extent to which Negroes defended themselves and protected their jobs…In days gone by, no cook would have dared to tell her employer what he ought to know. She had to tell him what he wanted to hear. She knew that the penalty for speaking the truth could be the loss of her job.(pg 164)
People from your time always remark how far we have come as to the sheer physical brutality the Black body had to endure. There are no whippings, no lynchings, and whites who kill blacks are investigated by the police, but I have to admit that sometimes it does not feel that way. Have we really come that far, or have the people doing the killings just changed their job titles?
Where, in the days of slavery, social license and custom placed unbridled power of the whip in the hands of overseers and masters, today – especially in the southern half of the nation – armies of officials are clothes in uniform, invested with authority, armed with the instruments of violence and death and conditioned to believe that they can intimidate, maim or kill Negroes with the same recklessness that once motivated the slaveowner. If one doubts this conclusion, let him search the records and find how rarely in any southern state a police officer has been punished for abusing a Negro. (pg 26)
You know the term tokenism is still around today? Why is it reviled so much? Isn’t that a person trying to better himself?
There is a critical distinction, however, between a modest start and tokenism. The tokenism Negroes condemn is recognizable because it is an end in itself. Its purpose is not to begin a process but instead to end the process of protest and pressure. It is a hypocritical gesture. Not a constructive first step. (pg 29)
I think black people were surprised that there were so many black people not only voting for Trump but actively campaigning for him. Did it surprise you?
Every minority and every people has its share of opportunists, profiteers, freeloaders, and escapists. The hammer blows of discrimination, poverty, and segregation must warm and corrupt some. No one can pretend that because a people may be oppressed, every individual member is virtuous and worthy.” (pg 44)
People were also dismayed by the Christian leaders who rallied for Trump.
So often, the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often, it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent – and often even vocal – sanction of things as they are. (pg 96)
It has been over 50 years since you died, and it seems like we are still where you left us. Now, a lot of the measures put in place are being rolled back. Why?
Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation (pg 89)
This book covers every aspect of Black life, from going to school, getting a job, shopping, politics, economics, and the balance of power between Black and White Americans – making this a book that is both a delight to read and hard.
Sixty-one years later, we are still fighting for the same things as our grandfathers and grandmothers—for the right to vote, to have government representation, to access schools and jobs that pay a living wage, and to have equal protection under the laws of the U.S.
We are not using the same tech, driving the same cars, wearing the same clothes, listening to the same music, or watching the same TV shows and movies, but somehow, we are still treating black people the same. To the point that many viewpoints in a 61-year-old book still ring true.