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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Progress wasn't made on interracial marriage and desegregation because black people waited patiently for the natural course of societal evolution to take place. Progress had to be forced upon society against its will, sometimes with guns. And even today there are plenty of people who would resegregate society and outlaw interracial marriage if it were legal. Racial realism and white supremacist ideology are becoming normalized in American politics. Even on HN you'll find people stating matter of factly that people black people have a higher genetic predisposition for criminality and lower IQs, and that slavery and colonization were the best thing to ever happen to them. This shit is not settled.

I disagree that "there is a ceiling on how much progress that can be made in one era" and I vehemently disagree with the implication that the government should determine how much progress is allowed.

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"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but 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; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

from MLK Jr. of course, while he was locked up in a jail in Birmingham for protesting.

It is revisionist history to think that civil rights were brought about by the barrel of a gun, and that there are no limits on the methods of direct action.

MLK Jr. is not saying there are no reasonable limits on methods of direct action. He is not saying that every goal is justified by any means.

Desegregation literally required armed troops escorting black students into white schools.

And there are no limits on the methods of direct action, certainly none dictated by the oppressors. If you believe otherwise, I will remind you of the pride Americans take in the violent revolution that founded their nation, and why the Second Amendment exists.

You cannot found a nation on the premise that political violence is necessary for a free state and then claim that there are limits to what those seeking freedom can do to achieve it. These are the rules to America's game.

You are missing the forest for the trees. Armed troops were used a handful of times in the entire country. Those troops weren't forced to act by radical black militias. Brown v. Board of Education wasn't decided at gunpoint.

It is legitimate to apply scrutiny to what causes are just, and what is a legitimate use of violence.

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