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January 15, 2024

Inspired by sermon on love, hate and the "highway of history" on this MLK Day

On MLK days in recent years, I have made a tradition of making time to listen to the full "I Have A Dream" speech by Dr. King (which always delivers), and I now also explore Stanford University's awesome collection of MLK Papers.  In previous years (in posts linked below), I have quoted from various renown speeches and writings with an emphasis on the intersection of the civil rights movement and criminal justice reform.  But today, what caught my attention was Dr. King's sermon titled simply "Loving Your Enemies," which he delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in November 1957.  I recommend the full sermon, and here are some excerpts:  

I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.  If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum.  It just never ends.  Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.  The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil.  And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off.  It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.  Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love....

And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction.  And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history.  Somewhere somebody must have some sense.  Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness.  And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody.  Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.  And you do that by love....

There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet.  Jesus discovered it centuries ago.  Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it.  For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way.”

Also a helpful reader made another reading recommendation for this day, this new opinion piece from the Washington Post by Colbert King, headlined "To bend toward justice, the arc of history has to bend toward family, too."  An excerpt:

“The family, that is, the group consisting of mother, father and child, still remains the main educational agency of mankind,” King said. Those words can’t top the majesty and call to action of King’s “I Have a Dream” oration, or match the moral teachings of his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” But they go to the heart of what’s missing in the lives of the many who are not free to join in this weekend’s festivities [because they are incarcerated].

A few links to a few recent MLK Day posts:

January 15, 2024 at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Comments

Love is not just sentiment. Indeed, sentiment is the least of its components. Mostly it's work -- the work of thinking through and then putting into place things what will lift people up and make their lives more secure and better.

The leading cause of death of young black men (and King was one when he was killed) is murder. Thus the main thing we can do to help young black men is reduce the murder rate. And we've done that. Starting in about 1990 and continuing for a generation, we cut the murder rate in this country by more than half. Black people, being a majority of murder victims (53% to be exact), were the primary beneficiaries.

We know what we did to accomplish this: Hire more police; undertake more aggressive and computer-assisted policing; and take more violent criminals off the street for longer.

One can reasonably debate whether these things were too expensive, but one cannot reasonably debate that they preserved many thousands of black lives.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 15, 2024 5:25:45 PM

Bill - I don't think anybody else on the planet would see using more police and prisons as "love". Those things may save young black lives but I always found your perspective interesting and short sighted - instead of trying to clean up after the fact (and that is primarily what police and prisons are all about), it would be a wiser investment to invest more in diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration that reduce recidivism as reduced recidivism is true compassion and heart - steering people off the course of crime without using prison is to my mind the highest form of compassion. I know you told me once that "demanding personal responsibility is among the most loving things an authority figure can do" but your perspective may strike many as hard hearted and cold. Brett Miler

Posted by: Brett Miler | Jan 15, 2024 7:34:23 PM

Brett --

Which kid do you think has a better chance in life?

A. The kid whose parents let him make excuses, and make excuses for him, and who refrain from discipline when he starts up at school and ignores homework assignments, thinking that discipline is "hard hearted and cold."

B. The kid whose parents don't accept excuses, impose high standards, believe in consequences if he's disrespectful at home or school, and insist that homework be done thoughtfully and punctually.

I was kid B. I wound up a Phi Beta Kappa, a graduate of Stanford Law School, an honors hire into DOJ, a division head at the USAO, a member of White House Counsel's Office, and an adjunct professor at a fine law school.

I didn't get where I am because I was born wonderful. Like every human being, I wanted to get cut a break whether I deserved it or not. I got where I am because standards and consequences were imposed on me. As a kid, I sometimes thought it was hard hearted and cold, that's true. I grew up, and now I know better.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 15, 2024 8:12:31 PM

Bill - your observations are mostly true - I am just concerned about the high recidivism rates of prisons - that is why I view investments in restorative justice and other programs more worthwhile in the long run than prisons and police. Brett Miler

Posted by: Brett Miler | Jan 15, 2024 8:33:54 PM

Nice place to talk here. So, I am all for consequences. But not punishment. Do you all see the difference? Fine, put people in prison, but the length of a sentence should serve a purpose it purports to serve: prevent the defendant from committing other crimes and deter others from doing so. It's a mathematical function: these two benefits increase to a maximum as the length of a sentence increases up to a certain point, but then the positive effect flattens out or worse yet, decreases.

And if the math view on this doesn't work for you, think of it as an issue of common sense. You take a person who has made a mistake. A bad thing. And you put them in prison for years, and then add more years. And you don't do much to rehabilitate them, or at least give them a chance to build skills and have a decent life. And then, you let this person out to rejoin the society, at which point they've been isolated from the society for so long that they can't function to provide for themselves or contribute to the society. Society was "safe" from this person while they were locked up, but now this person is potentially even more harmful to society.

How is this helpful to white, black or people of any color and persuasion???

Posted by: Courtney | Jan 16, 2024 12:11:04 AM

Courtney --

1. What do you mean by "consequences"?

2. When a person has intentionally done wrong, what's the problem with punishment?

3. Incapacitation and deterrence are two of the goals of the criminal justice system, yes. But just deserts is another, at least equally important. Why do you omit it?

4. People don't get sent to prison for "making a mistake." Adding 2+2 and getting 5 is a mistake. Having sex with a seven year old is not a mistake, nor is carjacking, sticking a revolver in the teller's ear until she cleans out the cash drawer, embezzling from your employer year after year, intimidating witnesses, doing a contract hit, etc., etc. You expose a slanted point of view by referring to the commission of a felony as a mere "mistake." It isn't, as you can't help knowing.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 16, 2024 2:57:04 AM

Brett --

My conversation with you was the inspiration for my Substack piece today,"As Murder Surges, the Nation's Capital Dabbles in Gibberish." You might be interested, https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/as-murder-surges-the-nations-capital

The reference to gibberish was not a reference to you, BTW. And you can subscribe to my Substack, "Ringside at the Reckoning" at no cost if you care to.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 16, 2024 11:14:31 PM

I’m happy I could inspire you Bill - thank you. Brett Miler

Posted by: Brett Miler | Jan 17, 2024 12:49:13 AM

Brett --

I doubt you'll agree with much in the piece if you read it. Still, one of the benefits of commenting here is the opportunity to talk with people who think differently and don't just yell.

Posted by: Bill Otis | Jan 17, 2024 2:37:41 AM

This is so funny. Bill's example A is President George W. Bush.

Posted by: whatever | Jan 17, 2024 3:12:18 PM

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