• grue@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Similarly, MLK saw “the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” as the biggest impediment to civil rights.

    The bottom line is that being secure enough in your position in society to think you don’t have to engage in politics, or that you can afford to vote your principles instead of tactically, is itself a form of privilege. Those sorts of privileged people think themselves neutral or uninvolved or maybe (in the case of professed leftists refusing to vote Dem as a protest) on their own third side, but the reality is that they are the right-wing authoritarians’ greatest ally every single time.

    • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Lol imagine thinking “moderate white” doesn’t perfectly describe the majority of people walking into the 2020 primaries and voting for Joe Biden.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You’re not wrong about the primary, but you are wrong to conflate the primary with the general election when it’s the latter that we’re talking about here.

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Lol so I’m “radical” in the primaries when I don’t vote for Biden but I’m “moderate” in the general when I don’t vote for Biden?

          That’s not how labels work sir.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      5 months ago

      The POTUS, from the party most opposed to civil rights act, is who signed it into law, very much so a white moderate more devoted to order. So, I’m gonna take a stance and say MLK was wrong about that one if that was his take before he died.