Why We Can't Wait

What Hacker News says

1. zapataband1Jun 2023
   Bennett conveniently ignores one fact--King was a strong supporter of affirmative action. In “Why We Can’t Wait,” published in 1963, he argued that given the long history of American racism, blacks fully deserved “special, compensatory measures” in jobs, education and other realms. Four years later, in “Where Do We Go From Here?” he wrote: “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him.”
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2. ejstrongeFeb 2023
   Just for your reference, here is another Martin Luther King quote. I encourage you to read more of an author's work before quoting in the future:

   From Why We Can't Wait : "Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic."

   ---

   Some more to help bolster your MLK canon:

   *In 1965 the writer Alex Haley interviewed King for an interview that ran in Playboy Magazine. Haley asks him about an employment program to help "20,000,000 Negroes." After expressing his approval for it, King estimates that such a program would cost $50 billion.

   Haley then asks: "Do you feel it's fair to request a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group?"

   King: "I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages--potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of two centuries of unpaid wages plus accumulated interest. In any case, I do not intend that this program of economic aid should apply only to the Negro; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races."*

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3. shark_laserOct 2022
   > It's also a complete travesty of Martin Luther King's thoughts to laser focus on this one quote.

   I didn't laser focus on this one quote, my previous reply includes several other quotes of his. Perhaps it is a complete travesty of his thoughts to ignore something he said in what is his most famous speech?

   > Martin Luther King was describing an ideal society in the far future that looks nothing like our messy present.

   Indeed, a future where his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." But as I said in my previous reply, the race debate as it stands in our "messy present" does the opposite of this.

   > Do you think Martin Luther King purpose in life is fairly summarized by "Hey we have talked too much about racism already" ?

   Where did I say that? I'm talking to you about racism now.

   > "even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode"

   Unfortunately MLK didn't live to see Obama become president, Michael Jordan dominate the NBA, or Lizzo playing James Madison's crystal flute.

   Another MLK quote from his book "Why We Can't Wait":

   > "Lamentably, it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."

   Note he says nothing about race here. This quote has more to do with "pretax and posttax income inequality" than race does. Reducing inequality to racism is naive at best.

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4. gpspakeJul 2021
   I hope so too. The disappointing revelation that follows those reveries is that, if it does come to pass, we won't be around to see it. It reminds me of Why We Can't Wait by Dr. King...

   >Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to work to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.” ― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

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5. tdeckApr 2021
   Somehow the legacy of MLK has been reduced to just that one quote, even though he wrote a a book ("Why We Can't Wait") that advocated for affirmative action programs for black people. His legacy has effectively been sanitized and "abridged" to be less challenging to persistent and harmful power structures.
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6. tdeckAug 2020
   MLK explicitly advocated for policies that gave preferential treatment to Black people, so it's a bit surprising to see such a fan of his taking this stance by invoking King. For example, here's a quote from his book "Why We Can't Wait":

   > Whenever the issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man is entered at the starting line in a race three hundred hears after another man, the first would have to perform some impossible feat in order to catch up.

   The Internet Archive has this book available for free to check out, you can read more on his argument around page 134 right here: https://archive.org/details/whywecantwait00king/page/134/mod...

   Essentially King is arguing that the government should promote the same kind of preferential hiring and other benefits that veterans get, but for members of other disadvantaged groups.

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