Monday was Martin Luther King Day in the US. I took the time on Sunday to reread his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail“, and a specific paragraph keeps coming to mind,

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past 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 his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler 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 cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“

The last two sentences chill me,

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“

I think about how few extremists there are in the world, despite how much media coverage they get. Beyond the news, most people are not exposed to extremists. We are all exposed to moderates. So, in the day to day living of most people, hate is not something we see, however shallow understanding is.

In many places there is tolerance masquerading as acceptance. This to me is what slows down progress. It’s not the wing-nuts on the extremes spewing dogmatism… Although their stance plays a role in allowing others to justify their tolerance as acceptance, since that tolerance can be justified as moderate. But it’s the complacent, shallow, (lukewarm) moderates that hinder genuine acceptance… because this population is huge. This population is blind or ignorant to their own prejudice; this population performs daily interactions that infringe on the true acceptance of ‘others’, without knowing it.

Prejudice sits within all of us. We discern differences with different weights, but we can not pretend we don’t see differences. We can decide what value we put on those differences. We can not pretend the differences don’t exist, or that we don’t see them.

“Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.“