Excerpt, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by MLK, Jr., 1967. Ch. 3: "Racism & the White Backlash":

"It is time for all of us to tell each other the truth about who and what have brought the Negro to the condition of deprivation against which he struggles today."/1

"In human relations the truth is hard to come by, because most groups are deceived about themselves. Rationalization and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our individualistic and collective sins." /2

"But the day has passed for bland euphemisms... To find the origins of the Negro problem we just turn to the white man's problem. As Earl Conrad says in a recent book, The Invention of the Negro: 'I have sought out these new routes in the unshakable conviction that...'" /3

"'...the question involves there cannot be and never could be answered merely by examining the Negro himself, his ghettos, his history, his personality, his culture. For the answer to how the Negro's status cam to be what it is does not lie essentially in...'" /4

"'...the world of the Negro, but in the world of the white.' In short, white America must assume the guilt for the black man's inferior status.

"Ever since the birth of our nation, white America has had a schizophrenic personality on the question of race. She has been torn..."/5

"...between selves--a self in which she proudly professed the great principles of democracy and a self in which she sadly practiced the antithesis of democracy. This tragic duality has produced a strange indecisiveness and ambivalence toward the Negro, causing America to..." /6

"...take a step backward simultaneously with every step forward on the question of racial justice, to be at once attracted to the Negro and repelled by him, to love and to hate him... The step backward has a new name today. It is called the 'white backlash." /7

"The white backlash is nothing new. It is the resurfacing of old prejudices, hostilities and ambivalences that have always been there. It was caused neither by the cry of Black Power nor by the unfortunate recent wave of riots in our cities. The white backlash of today is..." /8

"...rooted in the same problem that has characterized America ever since the black man landed in chains on the shores of this nation. The white backlash is an expression of the same vacillations, the same search for rationalizations, the same lack of commitment that have..." /9

"...always characterized white America on the question of race.

"What is the source of this perennial indecision and vacillation? It lies in the 'congenital deformity' of racism that has crippled the nation from its inception. The roots of racism are very deep in America." /10

"Historically it was so acceptable that today it still only lightly burdens the conscience. No one surveying the moral landscape of our nation can overlook the hideous and pathetic wreckage of commitment twisted and turned to a thousand shapes under the stress of prejudice..."/11

"...and irrationality.

"This does not imply that all white Americans are racists--far from it. Many white people have, through a deep moral compulsion, fought long and hard for racial justice. Nor does it mean that America has made no progress in her attempt to cure the..." /12

"...body politic of the disease of racism, or that the dogma of racism has not been considerably modified in recent years. However, for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality..." /13

"...while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists. What is racism? Dr. George Kelsey, in a profound book entitled Racism and the Christian Understanding of Man, states that: /14

"Racism is a philosophy based on a contempt for life. It is the arrogant assertion that one race is the center of value and object of devotion, before which other races must kneel in submission. It is the absurd dogma that one race is responsible for all the progress of..." /15

"...history and alone can assure the progress of the future. Racism is total estrangement. It separates not only bodies, but minds and spirits. Inevitably it descend to inflicting spiritual or physical homicide upon the out-group." /16