The opening post is a pretty narrow reading of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
The
whole letter is about the need for non-violent protest, how it's always necessary when there is injustice, how there's no excuse for sitting by as people's God-given rights are stripped from them. That photo is a great thing to bring up when talking about any kind of protest movement. Never, ever stop protesting just because someone thinks it's inconvenient.
But the one thing it is
not is an excuse to turn your back on your countrymen and shut them out.
To quote what may be my favorite paragraph of that same letter:
The letter is an impassioned plea to demonstrate the justice of his cause to those same "white moderates", the clergymen who should be sympathizing with his cause, but demand patience because they don't like his methods. He could have told them to go fuck themselves for standing in the way of his rights with their apathy, but instead he never loses sight of the fact that deep down, they believe in the same God and the same principles.
Today, we have been trying to live in monologue rather than dialogue. That has to change.
That doesn't mean tolerating bigotry, but at least try and
listen to people instead of rushing to judgment. We can't have a democracy where each half of the nation is convinced that the other half wishes to destroy them.
Protest and dialogue are compliments, not adversaries.