No Convenient Season
by digby
As I contemplate the various conversations I’ve been having with people of good will on the subject of “absolutism” and “litmus tests” especially as it pertains to the ongoing unanswered assaults a woman’s right to choose, I keep thinking about Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, particularly this passage:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past 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 his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler 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 cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro 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.
This issue is a matter of fundamental human rights. To see it used as a bargaining chip, something to be tossed into the pile along with earmarks and kickbacks is very disheartening. And yet pro-choice advocates grit their teeth and behave as good soldiers, this time allowing access to their constitutional right to abortion to be restricted yet again so that health care reform could succeed. And the goalposts have moved once more.
And once again we are told that it is a bad idea to be “too strident” and that we need to have a “big tent” and seek “common ground,” advice which has resulted over the course of 30 years in one party becoming totally anti-choice and another that is creeping ever more boldly toward accommodation to the same people. We are always told that we need to “wait for a more convenient season” to fight for our rights.
I understood what Dr King was saying when I first read that amazing document. I hoped everyone did. But when it comes to civil rights I have learned that every battle begins anew and each new generation must learn for themselves that no one should ever tell someone else that they must wait for their freedom — or force them to relinquish it by the death of a thousand cuts, each time for what is called a greater good. And if we complain we are patronizingly lectured in the ways of the world and patted on the head for being Big Girls and putting others before our petty concerns. This phenomenon has led me to King’s great insight: 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.
Human rights are not “issues” to be finessed in order to procure votes. They are principles which form the very basis of our values and worldview and they must be defended. Yet Americans have sold out their most cherished ideals of equality and liberty throughout its history. And it’s always, always been shameful, every single time.
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