Gordon, Chelsie: Diversity

The African Americans of the 1960s suffered terrible injustices. Being denied the right to vote and therefore being denied true freedom, they began to rally together and to protest publicly their unconstitutional situation. The comfort of eight Alabama clergymen was disturbed by these demonstrations. “You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions which brought about the demonstrations.” This statement by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” perfectly sums up the situation of the eight clergymen who authored the article “A Call for Unity.” These eight men wrote that in their opinion the African-American demonstrators in Birmingham ought to cease their public protests and instead take their problems to court, the same courts in which Blacks had no say in and until then abide quietly by the current laws. King explains the error in their thinking by pointing out that the clergymen are not taking into account the reason for the demonstrations.

            

The clergymen’s way of thinking is very similar to that of my father, and I know from experience this way of thinking does not work well for anyone. My father allows my younger brother and sister to act as they please without correction, therefore they display severe behavioral problems. The only discipline they receive is when they bother my father. He only cares to correct the problem when it interferes with his personal comfort, and then he only corrects the present action rather that the reason for the action. The clergymen, I believe, were not racist nor did they care whether African Americans received freedom and equality. The clergymen were only concerned with their own personal comfort and how the demonstrations disrupted their own lives. This is a selfish and mindless way of thinking that solves nothing.

            

We all share this earth, which is shrinking every day, and as a result we cannot be indifferent to the concerns and conditions of others around us. Their situations affect every person in some way. King’s description of “mutuality” between all of the people of the country is very accurate. Just as all ecosystems are tied together, so too are races and communities. What affects them also affects the country as a whole. “An injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere.”