Analysis: I Am Not An Outsider

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. resolutely responds to eight clergymen who question his methods of protest against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Specifically, in paragraphs 12-14, Dr. King explains why his protests are indeed being done in a timely manner to obtain the “constitutional and God-given rights” (A Portable Anthology, page 207) that Africans have been restricted of for over 340 years. Dr. King’s argument, combined with his strategic use of rhetorical devices to enhance it, helps create a palpable feeling of understanding that captivates the audience into seeing America through his vision.

What is an outsider? An outsider is a person who is not excepted by or is isolated by society. Have you ever been an “outsider”? Everyone experiences a situation where they weren’t able to fit in. The feeling of not being able to fit it is universal. Not everyone is the same and in certain situations you may not be able to bond with everyone. Everyone is focused on being judged or being the person who is judging someone. If you are not like everyone in your society group, those people don’t except you. Nowadays our society feels that if you aren’t up to people’s expectations, you are known to be an “outsider”. Being an outsider is universal because not everyone is social, not everyone can afford nice things and not everyone is popular.

The purpose for Martin Luther king to write “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was to respond to white Alabama clergymen who before this had criticized his action saying they were “unwise and untimely.” These clergymen had published a criticism directed towards King’s organization and participation in his protest march against segregation in Birmingham. This letter is not intended to persuade these men towards supporting civil rights, but rather to demonstrate that there is an immediate need towards direct action, and also that they need to open their eyes and see the African American community’s suffering. King withal expounds the need for tension, though only through nonviolent means, a tension that will coerce society to confront the present convivial iniquity head on. King disapproves being called an outsider because of his belief that humanity is part an "inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

When he was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama he then fell under criticism by white clergy for coming to Birmingham as an “outsider” to cause trouble and increase tension through public sit-ins and marches. I feel that Martin Luther King was able to both set aside that criticism by establishing his credibility to have not only been invited to come to Birmingham to help end the injustice to the Negro people via peaceful means, but he was able to identify moral, legal and ethical cause to promote his quest to put a stop to what he identified as “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States” (King, 2017, p, 3). I will provide a summary that will show what Martin Luther King believed were the cause of the injustice that he was striving to end to as well as his concern over the white community’s ability to make the Negro “wait for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights.”

The first 2 pages of Dr. King's speech provide nothing but hardcore facts. He’s writing to clergymen to inform and explain his side of the “story.” Dr. King was asked to come join the city of Birmingham in a non-violent demonstration. He tells the clergymen that even after promises were made, they were then broken. The demonstration didn’t come from nothing, blacks were being treated crucially. All the efforts that the black community made to sit down and talk to the city fathers did no good. City fathers didn’t even want to talk to blacks about what was going on. Dr. King also proves a point that he, nor anyone else who lives in the U.S can be considered an outsider in his/her own country. After black community leaders sat down with leaders of Birmingham’s economic community, they came to an agreement where blacks were promised racial signs would be taken down, but only a short time after, they began to realize not a lot of signs were taken down and those that were, were then put back up. This gave the black community

In King’s speech, he used ethos and logos to explain why he was in Birmingham. For example, King communicated, “I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia” (King 1). This quote shows that the president of an African American civil rights organization was Martin Luther King Jr. Additionally, this

Meanwhile, Dr. King also appeals to the logical side of the men within the letter, to lead them to the bigger picture of the injustice faced by African-Americans during this era. Dr. King uses facts and United States laws to prove that his actions were not untimely but in contrast these actions were overdue and that in fact he was not an outsider, but rather an invited guest.“So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here, I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” (King) He goes on by saying “Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a text by Martin Luther King Jr. that explains his rationale for holding nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. As an ardent leader of the civil rights movement, King led multiple peaceful protests against segregation, many of which sparked conflicts with local governments. In 1963, the city of Birmingham, Alabama imprisoned King for his role in a demonstration there. While in jail, King received news that eight local clergymen had published a statement criticizing his part in the protest and arguing that it only served to interfere with the efforts to improve racial relationships in the city. In response, he wrote an impassioned letter countering the clergymen’s arguments and clarifying his own views.

Throughout the letter, Dr. King eloquently stated the philosophy behind the SCLC’s protest in return of the clergymen’s criticism. The first argument was he had both the authority and right motivation to come to Birmingham. This is the answer to the clergymen’s accusation that Dr. King was an “outsider”. Firstly, he was invited by his allies. Secondly, even if he was not invited, he still had to come to Birmingham since racial segregation was excruciating there. Not only were color people prohibited to enter the public parks, stay in motel, or to go to the white church, but also faced violence from bombing and police brutality. Innocent children could not be able to understand why they could not play at the park, or why they were treated badly. If this situation was acceptable in Birmingham, then it could have might spread to other places throughout the nation as well. Therefore, Dr. King had to take action to change the painful racism situation in Birmingham.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a protester and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, greatly known for his use of nonviolent forms of demonstration. On a specific occasion, King was arrested for leading a peaceful protest as part of the Birmingham Campaign, which attempted to bring national awareness to the gruesome treatment endured by blacks. While in jail, King replies to the clergyman’s remarks of him being a foreign agitator in his “Letter from a Birmingham jail,” passionately defending the actions he took. The clergymen accused King of being an extremist, as they saw his relentless protesting and civil disobedience as a threat to a stable political and social system. In paragraphs 27-32, King attempts to persuade the

Would you rather follow people that you don’t fully believe in, and mask what you really feel, or stand out from the crowd and be an individual even without others by your side? How about you lead that crowd. When you follow the Crowd, sometimes it isn’t something you completely, 100% believe in. So why would you want to pretend to be something you aren’t? Do you really need praise from others to feel like you are an important individual.

When people are growing up, being normal was the way to be cool. Everyone wants to be like everybody else and that’s the way it goes. What children and many adults still don’t understand is that being different and having diversity is a good thing. It is ok to be different, especially in today 's society. Being able to acknowledge that diversity and disability in everyday life and seeing the good in it will help bring together our society. For my next three paragraphs i 'm going to discuss what it was like to be an outsider, when I experienced diversity and an experience I have had with disability

In terms of the theoretical issues in qualitative research, the issue of insider-outsider has arisen as one of the debated topics for some recent scholars (e.g. Kanuha, 2000; Dwyer and Buckle, 2009). Historically, social researchers commonly agreed with the ‘separation of facts and values’ and the interdiction on employing values in assessing of truth permit research becoming objective (David and Sutton, 2004:17). Here an objective research refers to researcher objectively eliminate their own ‘gaze’ in the course or research. In this sense, researchers should be acted as an outsider who common attributes are shared by the research participants. Acknowledged by Fay (1996) that qualitative researchers as not being an insider during research are beneficial in term of assisting the understanding of the researched group, he further proposed that researchers as an outsider might be more sufficiently conceived the experience from the researched, might be more capable to recognise the broader perspective, and might be more obviously to view what is happening, since researchers as an insider are frequently intertwined with their own knowledge (Fay, 1996). Among the three chosen studies, Mandiuc (2014)’s study can be considered as an example of outsider researcher since she did not clearly explained whether she has any experiences of motherhood and/or on prostitution.

How does it feel to be an outsider? Ponyboy knows what it is like to be one for sure. S.E. Hinton writes The Outsiders. The Outsiders takes place in the mid 1960’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In The Outsiders, the theme of the story is not to judge people based on their appearance. A teen gang in Tulsa, the Greasers, are always on bad terms with the Socs. When one of the fights turns into a bad situation, involving Johnny killing a Soc. Ponyboy, and Johnny take off to live in a church in Windrixville. Dally Winston comes to Windrixville to check in on them and see if they need anything, he takes them to Dairy Queen, while they eat, as if it were their last meal, Johnny discusses that he should go back and turn himself in. As they are driving back to the church from Dairy Queen, they see that the church is on fire. Johnny and Pony think that they are the ones who may have started the fire due to them lighting cigarettes in the church. The three of them go into the church to save the children that are in there. The boys are taken to the hospital. Johnny has severe burns and injuries from the fire. He soon gets very ill and dies. Then, Dally tricks the fuzz into shooting him, Dally planned to die because he cannot live without Johnny. At the end of the book Pony and his brothers get to stay together and his essay for English class is the story of The Outsiders. When Ponyboy has a nightmare about his parents’ funeral, it is foreshadowing that someone later in the story will die. When

I believe that the experience of being and outsider is universal. The reason why everyone is different. My belief is that everyone is an outsider. It doesn’t matter on if you’re cool or not. Everyone has that makes them an outsider.