But if Dr. King’s premise is correct, does it mean the arc of the moral universe bends of its own accord?
“I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”
Individuals with moral clarity, who speak the truth regardless of the personal consequences, are rarely rewarded and very often silenced: crucified, burned at the stake, decapitated, hung, or shot dead. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham City Jail in April 1963. At the time — nine years after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision requiring the integration of public schools in the south — Birmingham was one of the most segregated cities in the country. As King wrote, “There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation.” The bombings went unsolved because the white police establishment didn’t try very hard, if at all, to solve the crimes.
Our federal authorities are today playing the same tired game in Minneapolis, protecting the ICE agent who murdered Renee Nicole Good by slandering her character, claiming, without evidence, that Good was a domestic terrorist, an agitator, a leftist who tried to use her vehicle as a weapon. In the aftermath of Good’s murder, federal agents have redoubled their efforts to terrorize the citizens of Minneapolis; the images of ICE goons yanking people from their cars are appalling. The corrupt Department of Justice — now operating openly as Donald Trump’s revenge and retribution agency — is investigating Tim Walz, the Governor of Minnesota, and Jacob Frey, the Mayor of Minneapolis, on bogus allegations of conspiring to interfere with federal agents. Yes, it’s Orwellian.
Erasing the past is a tactic used by authoritarian regimes. At every opportunity, the Trump Regime claims the 2020 election was stolen and that January 6 was a peaceful day of patriotic protest. The scenes of violence watched by millions as they unfolded are discredited and denied, just as the murder of Ms. Good is denied; the victim is blamed for her own death. This is the same ruse used by Israel’s murderous leaders when they are accused of war crimes; it’s the accusers who must be slandered and punished, not the criminals. The audacity, mendacity and venality has become routine.
After greed and personal enrichment, white nationalism and white supremacy is the foundation upon which Trumpism rests. The Regime engages in energetic displays of erasure, attempting, for example, to resurrect the ancient lie that the “peculiar” institution of slavery was beneficial for Black people. White slave owners are portrayed as benevolent and kind, despite documented evidence to the contrary; monuments to Confederate traitors are justified; white people are painted as the victims of civil rights legislation.
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating,” wrote Dr. King from his jail cell, “than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” Among the many bewildering aspects of this time, nothing is more so than the manifest moral cowardice of many of our political leaders, Democrat and Republican alike. Some are incapable of telling right from wrong, ethical from unethical, decent from indecent; it’s as if a heavy shroud covers Washington D.C., allowing neither light or truth to penetrate.
Dr. King said the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and I’d like to believe this is true, that somehow the scales balance, the moral are rewarded and the immoral suffer the consequences of their deeds. But if Dr. King’s premise is correct, does it mean the arc of the moral universe bends of its own accord? Or does the arc only bend when enough people, at the right moment, for the right reasons, put their shoulder to the wheel to force justice into being?
