King on Being a Good Neighbor

King on Being a Good Neighbor

Thomas Allen

In “On Being a Good Neighbor,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 21–30, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses a good neighbor, altruism, pity, and sympathy. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.

According to King, a good neighbor is not passive; he is actively involved in life-giving deeds. (In other words, he meddles in other people’s affairs. Thus, the United States have been a good neighbor since the end of the Cleveland administration as they seek to meddle in the affairs of most other countries.) Further, being a good neighbor is not “a moral pilgrimage that reached its destination point but in the love ethic by which he journeyed life’s highway.” (P. 21) (That is, a good neighbor meddling knows no end.)

Next, King uses the story of the good Samaritan as an example of a good neighbor. (However, King and his followers seldom acted like good neighbors toward Southerners and never toward segregationists.) A good neighbor is altruistic. (Yet, King was never altruistic toward Southerners and especially segregationists.)

King preaches universal altruism (for Whites, but not for Negroes except for Negroes who opposed his movement). Neighborliness is an altruism that transcends tribe, race, class, and nation. (Nevertheless, King is void of such altruism. Whites are to sacrifice themselves for Negroes, but Negroes are not to give Whites anything. The rich and middle class are to sacrifice themselves for the poor while the poor are just to take. Segregationists are to sacrifice themselves to integrationists, but integrationists are never to give segregationists anything.)

While condemning a narrow group-centered attitude, King promotes a narrow group-centered attitude (— everything for the Negro.) The concerns of countries with their own interests lead to war. Manufacturers concerned with their own personal interests replace their workers with machines. (If workers were never replaced with machines, we would still be living in the stone age.) Expressing his desire for socialism and wealth redistribution, King condemns manufacturers who oppose the redistribution of wealth. (King-idolizing conservatives should promote the redistribution of wealth.)

Then, King condemns Whites who do not sacrifice themselves and all that they have for Negroes. Failure to do so robs the Negro of his personhood, strips him of his dignity, and leaves him dying along the wayside. (Whites have sacrificed much of what they have for the benefit of the Negro. Whites pay Negroes to loaf and have large families, give them jobs for which they are not qualified, allow them to break the law with impunity, and give them a host of other benefits and privileges denied Whites. Yet, most Negroes are still not satisfied. Now, Whites are denied their personhood, stripped of their dignity, and are dying along the wayside. Further, Whites grovel before Negroes begging forgiveness for things that they have not done.)

Continuing, King condemns people for failing to think of people of other races, nationalities, religions, etc. “as fellow human beings made from the same basic stuff as we, molded in the same divine image.”  (P. 24.) (However, King fails to free himself of his narrow-mindedness. He always promotes the interest of the Negro even at the expense of others. Moreover, especially regarding Southerners and segregationists, he fails “to remove the cataracts of provincialism from [his] spiritual eyes and see men as men.” [P. 24.])

Furthermore, King condemns Whites who do not see Negroes as human beings first. (Yet, King seldom sees Southerners as human beings first and never sees segregationists as human beings. He usually sees them as subhumans or lower vermin.)

Then, King remarks that many people do not aid Negroes because of fear. If they support integration and oppose segregation, they fear losing their jobs, prestige, and status. Further, they fear attacks on their person or property. They may also fear going to jail. (Now, Whites fear these things if they support segregation and oppose integration. Also, they fear these things if they oppose the benefits and privileges that Blacks have but are denied to Whites. As a result, many Whites grovel before Negroes.)

Continuing, King writes, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.” (P. 26-27.) (Today, most people prefer temporary comfort and convenience to defending the White race and the country as founded. Consequently, most people are not true neighbors. Most likely, King would endorse today’s lack of neighborliness.)

Then, King writes, “True altruism is more than the capacity to pity; it is the capacity to sympathize.” (P. 27.) (King and most of his followers are void of altruism. Not only do they not pity Southerners or segregationists, but they also have no sympathy for them. Actually, many have a negative pity for them. King and his followers may pity them for being too stupid or ignorant to agree with King.)

King defines true sympathy as “the personal concern that demands the giving of one’s soul. . . . [S]ympathy grows out of a concern for a particular needy human being. . . . Sympathy is fellow feeling for the person in need — his pain, agony, and burdens.” (P. 27.) (That King would have had sympathy for Southerners and especially segregationists is hard to believe.)

According to King, pity is doing something for people, and sympathy is doing something with people. Pity without sympathy leads to paternalism. (Pity void of sympathy has mostly guided the civil rights movement. Progressives, liberals, and many conservatives have made the government parents of Negroes. It supports a large number of unwed mothers with children. It has given Negroes all sorts of unearned benefits and privileges. In short, the government is a parent who has made its Negro children spoiled brats.)

King pushes integrated church congregations and implies that Whites are responsible for segregated church congregations. (However, at least in the South, Negroes are the ones that initiated the segregation of church congregations. They wanted to be independent of Whites.)

Continuing, King writes, “The law cannot make an employer love an employee, but it can prevent him from refusing to hire me because of the color of my skin.” (P. 29.) (Because of forced or implied quotas to prove non-discrimination, employers hire based on race. Unqualified Negroes are hired instead of qualified Whites to prove that the employer is not racially discriminating although he discriminates against Whites. King would have supported this discrimination because he promoted it.)

Next, King declares, “Court orders and federal enforcement agencies are of inestimable value in achieving desegregation, but desegregation is only a partial, though necessary, step toward the final goal that we seek to realize, genuine intergroup and interpersonal living.” (P. 29.) (In other words, King is promoting miscegenation. Consequently, he shows that he despises the American Negro. Miscegenation leads to breeding the American Negro out of existence, which is genocide. While King recognized that desegregation and integration were the road to miscegenation, White promoters of desegregation in the 1950s declared that miscegenation was not a goal of integration and would increase only slightly.)

Moreover, King believes that forced association leads to harmony and love. It could never lead to contempt and hostility. (Yet, the latter has occurred much more often than the former — probably because forced association violates God’s law of racial separation. What would have surprised King is that more contempt and hostility has arisen from Negroes than from Whites —thus, the desire of Negroes to segregate themselves from Whites, and Whites objecting to such segregation.)

Then, King claims, “True integration will be achieved by true neighbors who are willingly obedient to unenforceable obligations.” (So far, integration has failed to live up to King’s promotion. More often than not, integration has led to disharmony and hostility — especially by Negroes as the Black Lives Matter riots showed — than to harmony and love.)

King falls far short of living up or even attempting to live up to his description of the good Samaritan. He is void of altruism and sympathy — especially for Southerners and segregationists. Thus, by his description of neighborliness, he is not a good neighbor. Moreover, integration has failed to achieve the harmony that he declares it would achieve.

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More social issues articles.