Letter From Birmingham Jail
I told you so, is a common expression of bitterness online these days along with "First they came for the..."
I happened to read all the way through Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail this morning. I think it was my first complete reading. It's part of a Penguin Modern Classics collection (Separate short works from a very random selection of authors.)
On the matter of justice King states:
"...An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law..."
I couldn't help reading this as foreshadowing and an I told you so for we people of privilege as we watch rising fascism take away our sense of power and autonomy.
Is the special gift of privilege the ability to observe history's lessons and completely ignore them?