How do we change?

I remember distinctly the first time I listened to a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Perhaps I had read the words before, but for some reason listening to them… Man.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Granted, it was four in the morning and I hadn’t slept for 36 hours and was nearly hallucinating while driving cross-country, eating only gas station snacks. But regardless of my state, 17-year-old me got rocked by listening to Dr. King read his letter.

My protection — provided by flimsy platitudes — was annihilated. Not really by his words, but through the new vantage those words provided my conscience. For the first time, I saw myself in the mortar of an unacceptable status quo, helping to hold together a construct I knew was wrong through inaction. Silence.

This was not the polite, whitewashed Dr. King I had come to know through the American public school system. This was not the man we celebrated every year as we willfully ignored his calls to action and persecuted and ostracized his intellectual heirs.

This guy was a radical!

In my passive-aggressive, white, midwestern, Minnesota-Nice existence, conflict was equated with violence. The capacity for tolerance of injustice was nearly infinite. The tolerance of conflict was nearly zero.

I was — until this moment of revelation — ill-prepared, or even completely unable, to identify the evil of a universal injustice enforced by cultural intolerance of uncomfortable dialogue. The rhetorical fire that King brings in this letter scattered my old judgments and replaced them with an ember of an understanding of a moral imperative — a reflection of myself and my existence in context.

“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.”

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This jarring confrontation changed me. The distilled truth of Dr. King’s words, and the moral clarity with which they were delivered haunted me. This feeling revisits me regularly.

Like most white people throughout the history of “progressive” white people, I tell myself stories. I am a protagonist — THE protagonist.

I place myself in a narrative that many times, is half-earned at best — loosely-tethered to reality. I aspire to be worthy of a place in the narrative as a descendent of Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition or as a Freedom Rider like James Zwerg, even as I know I am perhaps as often more like the clergymen addressed by Dr. King from his jail cell.

Because ultimately, this is a problem of tactics. And Dr. King has no use for half-measures.

The clergymen’s letter that prompted Dr. King’s immediate response, “A Call for Unity” could be written today. The signers admonition to wait, build consensus, and work through established avenues to affect change based on voluntary accommodation probably sounded like reasonable, wise words to many.

We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.

- Alabama clergymen

I have judged — and will likely continue to judge — some change efforts as unwise and untimely. I continue to feel tension between my feelings of a burning desire for a revolutionary change in our systems of care with my experience that change is often incremental. I see myself in both letters.

The white clergymen — like me — saw themselves as allies, concerned for the well-being of the movement at large, of which they were supportive and viewed themselves as invested. Rev. King’s immediate, blistering response caused some to reconsider their approach, although many went to their graves resentful of his portrayal. I find myself randomly peppered with these thoughts — capable of both reflection and frustration with myself and my place in moving things forward.

Like in 1963, we are in the midst of a broad shift in our national discourse around effective tactics for affecting change. Like in 1963, things are both very complicated, and through an intentional commitment to principle and radical honesty, often very simple.

There are few in our field who don’t lament the persistent inequities and disparities around outcomes in behavioral health. There is nobody I am aware of on the national stage who argues that this isn’t a priority. At least not publicly. However, the sentiment expressed in the clergymen’s letter remains widespread, and despite the incredible shift in our national dialogue, remains largely dominant among those within our existing power structures, even if it is shared only privately and quietly. The reasons “not to” are infinite.

Dr. King’s “White moderate” continues to hold the cards.

“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.”

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

And, this is the conversation that I am most interested in. What is the best way forward? How do we best work together to affect change? How do we harness a diversity of tactics as we address widespread injustice?

For me, it is a constant and woefully imperfect process of continual self-reflection.

Where am I more interested in order than justice? Where is my desire for an absence of tension most costly? Where do I find myself paternalistically believing I know best? Where am I content to sit on the sideline while others push for progress?

As we bootstrap and hustle to create an organization that offers appropriate, compassionate care for individuals and families affected by substance use, we are faced constantly with the fact that Minnesota is home to some of the most unacceptable racial disparities in America.

And, while our efforts at YourPath might be perceived with judgment of the performative or business-driven nature of this type of messaging, or the hubris of claiming this type of work as “ours,” I can’t help but believe that I’d rather err on the side of trying to address these issues via our imperfect collaborations than letting it be someone else's problem.