re: Racial tensions will never go away so long as we are afraid to have honest discussions

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Has anyone ever told them who controlled the power structure and allowed them to achieve the gains they have?

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That isn't true. I can delineate a history from Marcus Garvey to Dr. King that shows they understood the power structure very well, and that there was a variety of opinion on what to do. Garvey's idea was to unite and stand as a united front from what he thought was eventual extermination by the hands of the white majority. King took an entirely different approach, precisely because he disagreed with Garvey's. At the same time, he implored the white moderate to take his side and stand with him, and once he got people on his side the tide in the Civil Rights era turned. Here is what King said:

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I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. 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.

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This is an outright appeal to the white moderate and the power structure they inhabited.

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They are taught that King and others just showed up and decided to change society one day

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This is not true.