Racism Made America a Failed State, Just Like Its Greatest Mind Predicted
There are very strong words of Martin Luther King. His question was always, how is it that one group—the white group—can despise another group, which is the black group. And will it always be like this? Will we always be having an elite condemning or pushing down others that they consider not worthy? And he says something I find extremely beautiful
... See moreKrista Tippett • Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living
What the White South confronted in the movement era was a paradigm shift. There was a model for sustaining White supremacy: terrorizing Black folks, the dispassionate acquiescence of the White North and the federal government, economic control, and an ideological hold on its ranks managed by humiliation and cruelty. But a model only holds as long a
... See moreImani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
“The American people are infected with racism—that is the peril,” King concluded. “Paradoxically, they are also infected with democratic ideals—that is the hope.”
Taylor Branch • At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68
we must admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged small-hearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stri
... See moreMartin Luther King Jr. • Strength to Love
But in spite of the shortcomings of his analysis, Marx had raised some basic questions. I was deeply concerned from my early teen days about the gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, and my reading of Marx made me ever more conscious of this gulf. Although modern American capitalism had greatly reduced the gap through social reforms,
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