Abusing Power - Outside Reading

8 December 2017
In Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King writes about unjust treatment through segregation. He references Martin Buber’s “I-it” and “I-thou” relationships to describe racial tension (King 268). Segregators boost their own egos by surrounding themselves with like-minded individuals. Slowly, their opinion becomes that of the majority, and eventually it influences law.
Segregation and prejudice, Dr. King argues, intended to dehumanize African Americans in order to control them (King 267). As Buber writes, an “I-it” experience relates to an individual and an object while “I-thou” shows a relationship between individuals (Buber 56). Segregation creates an “I-it” relationship because it labeled African Americans as objects to experience rather than people to communicate with. By dehumanize the minority, the majority feels no moral guilt for treating them cruelly. Dr. King and others had trouble gaining respect because they were seen as objects, not people to form meaningful relationships with. Then tension facing the two further creates this barrier where the two sides refuse to accept the other's ideals. These misunderstandings make the gap between them wider which makes each other seem more like "it" than "thou".

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