Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis

For centuries, African Americans have always been treated as inferior; as lower-ranking citizens likened to the status of animals. The earliest settlers of The United States had African American slaves, as well as our early presidents. At the time this was just part of the status quo, everyone had their own slave to help them with daily life or to tend to their fields. Slowly over time, the margin of slaves and free blacks in the country began to shrink. African American began to fight for their freedom and equal rights, with all this tension coinciding with the political divide which resulted in the Civil War. The Civil War was a time when the North and South split over the debate of slavery, “The Civil War started because of uncompromising

King talks about how anyone in the country does not deserve to be called an outsider, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country” (King Jr. 343). This outsider feeling is definitely prevalent in modern day cases like that of Trayvon Martin. Martin was an unarmed 17-year-old that was shot in cold blood by police officer George Zimmerman. “The aftermath demonstrated that America is not yet cured from “the cancer of whiteness” that infects the heart of American Christianity” (Thompson). This truly shows how how disenfranchised some African American citizens are, enough that a police officer would believe their superiority give them the right to fatally shoot an unarmed teenager. This was an incident where the victim was just peacefully minding his own business and was unrightfully murdered. Another aspect that King stresses is the importance on having peaceful campaigns and marches; he was against violence. Today’s Black Lives Matter marches and campaigns would disappoint King. Many of these protests becomes extremely violent which is against everything that King preached. African Americans have every reason to fight back for all these cases of police brutality, but these actions do

No matter what goes on the scale of power always tips back to the white citizens of the country just because of their skin color. When confronted with the idea of white privilege, white people often believe that they are being victimized by otherwise uncontrollable circumstances. “White fragility is a state where even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves including outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation” (Corrigan). When white people experience these feelings, they often label themselves as the victim in the situations, blaming others for confronting them based on uncomfortable or racially charged feelings. Even in situations where African Americans are being discriminated against in a non-deliberate way, white fragility shows that racial prejudice still exists even on a subconscious