Some Thoughts after Reading the Letter

It was an exciting letter and it still is. In the letter King talks about dream for freedom, justice, and love for brothers all over the world, which are all fundamentally essential and desired by human beings. His wording is eloquent, and his thoughts are plain but powerful. I have to admit that in reading this letter I was moved by his fervent love for those miserably opressed men, while at the same time shocked by the bestial behaviors put on them. King mentioned his disappointment and the question of right time, and further explicated the meaning of “timing” in a new way different from the way people misconceive as “waiting”.

“it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective apraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to creat the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

Lots of King’s words lead to my growing sensitiveness regarding my own disappointment. Togeter with the citation above, the other part talking about the two different kinds of laws, just and unjust, and such quotation as “the strange irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills”, are combing together remind me of the condition of my own country, where such websites as youtube, facebook and twitter are forbidden. It is not a country cultivating the spirit of Socrates. Injustice in anywhere is everywhere. Therefore it must be true that injustice is everywhere.

Anyway back to the letter which I really enjoy reading. I admire King's courage and resolute faith. He mentioned Jesus as an extremist for love and justice, but not the kind of extremism as the end, but rather means. It is not violence we are seeking, but the negotiation, peace, equality and truth. But why we have to bring into "the fact of history" the violence?

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was 'well timed' in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation."

Now I found my place in what King criticized as "a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some way they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses." I have faith in truth and love, but I lack something important. I know that, since I don't lack them when I was a teenager. But I feel like there is nothing that can be done as what King has done in my country. We are just waiting and waiting.