Iansá Magazine

By Thinkpiece Tribe

In Chapter 12 of ‘Beneath The Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader’, the introduction pages to MLK’s ‘Letter From Birmingham City Jail’ contain these words. Quote: “his argument shifts from the question ‘Is it legal or illegal?’ to ‘Is it ethical or unethical?’ In his moral landscape, the oppressed lead, and sincere allies take direction from them” (Jamal, Black, 146). Frankly, this letter has so many takeaways that they could amount to the length of a dissertation. Hints of liberation theology, the police state killing black brothers and sisters with impunity, and, most importantly, his take on the white moderate. Quote: “First, I must confess that over the last 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 the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor 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 feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” A shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than an absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection” (Jamal, Black, 156). MLK wrote this passage in 1963, and these words continue to ring true in 2025 through more contemporary examples of the white moderate problem.

C. Wright Mills defines the Power Elite as those who occupy the strategic command posts of the major institutional hierarchies. One of the highly visible public figures who occupies this Power Elite is a man named Ezra Klein. He is a white, neoliberal political commentator and journalist who has his own show with the New York Times and wrote a book titled ‘Abundance’ which advocates for Big-Tent Politics. Said politics refers to a political party that encompasses a spectrum of political beliefs, including the right wing. It is important to understand why Ezra Klein is part of the Power Elite by going deeper into Mills’s The Power Elite. Quote: “The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. Whether they do or do not make such decisions is less important than the fact that they do occupy such pivotal positions: their failure to act, their failure to make decisions, is itself an act that is often of greater consequence than the decisions they do make.” (Mills, 3, 4). Ezra Klein has been invited to the White House, and Senate Democrats listen to him when he speaks. He even helped set the stage for Kamala Harris’s nomination in February 2024 by advocating for Joe Biden to drop out (Malone, 2024). He is not just a prominent “celebrity”; his words can influence the direction of an entire mainstream political party.

After the death of Charlie Kirk, Ezra Klein released an op-ed article in the New York Times that stated, “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way”. As recently as 2024, this same Charlie Kirk said, “the great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different”. The great replacement theory is a white supremacist conspiracy theory that claims non-white populations are systemically replacing white populations.

According to this theory, white people are the superior race but are simultaneously being controlled and replaced by other inferior races. This goes back to Ezra Klein, because these statements weren’t discussed or mentioned in Ezra Klein’s article about Charlie Kirk. Seeing this, Ta-Nehisi Coates responded in a Vanity Fair article where he stated, “and what of the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life? Can they truly be so ignorant of the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself” (Coates, 2025).

This rightful disagreement earned Coates an opportunity to hash out his differences with Ezra Klein on his podcast show with the New York Times. Throughout the hour-long conversation, Coates explains the history of black reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and how America’s past history with black people affects America’s present moments with black people. Ezra Klein is only able to respond to this by saying, “when you view history in this way it makes the present too deterministic and I like to view history from 8 to 12 years ago”.

What exhibits the issues with the white moderate better than this? What displays these timeless words from Dr. King’s letter more than this? How is this any different from a Texas white man writing to Dr. King, quote: “all christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry?” (Jamal, Black, 157). Ezra Klein believes in his abundance and Big-Tent Politics, because he views history from 8 to 12 years ago. He doesn’t put things in their historical context unless it pertains to creating a fictionalized history to support apartheid Israel. He chooses to remain ignorant of the DNC (Democratic National Convention), ignoring Palestinian/Arab American voters and Ruwa Roman in 2024, similar to the DNC ignoring black voters and Fannie Lou Hamer in 1964. He even refuses to acknowledge empirical political data coming from New York City as Zohran Mamdani (a democratic socialist) won the democratic mayoral race. This is a white man who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.

Oftentimes, his Big-Tent Politic tries to appeal to centrists and republicans rather than the people left of them who actually want to vote for the democratic party. When it comes to Ezra Klein, democratic socialists such as Zohran Mamdani are highlighted for their videos instead of their policies to tax the rich and implement free childcare. Whereas white supremacists like Charlie Kirk are celebrated for doing nothing but pushing half-baked arguments and incorrect statistics against 18-year-old college students. In his interview with Coates, Ezra Klein was utterly unable to engage with Coates’ historical responses as a black man living in America and would quickly move on to another topic that fits his abundance narrative. To put it another way, this is who the Democratic Party genuinely listens to. They listen to a white man who thinks analyzing black history to reveal our present moments is too deterministic, who only views history from 8 to 12 years ago, and mainly works to appeal to centrists, republicans, and bona fide white supremacists like Charlie Kirk. This is the framework that shapes his words, which influences the Democratic Party to act on policies that affect America domestically and internationally, particularly regarding U.S. global hegemony.

Even when we observe the current election season, it can be argued that these issues with the white moderate extend to white America as a whole. In Maine, Graham Platner has become the next democratic candidate to run for the U.S Senate in Maine. His campaign has exploded in popularity, and so have his controversies. Not only was Graham Platner a Blackwater mercenary soldier during the war in Afghanistan, but he also had a skull and bones Nazi tattoo that he hid from the public. He says he had no knowledge that this was a nazi tattoo and recently covered it up. Even if we take this at face value, it still illuminates the utter ignorance of white Americans who are not able to recognize Nazi imagery and symbolism. This statement might seem harsh, considering that America has historically kept white Americans ignorant to curb a dangerous, educated proletariat, but here is the real kicker. Graham Platner, having a Nazi tattoo, does not seem to be affecting his popularity to the extent that it should. In fact, it appears that he has garnered even more support from these controversies, particularly from politicians such as Bernie Sanders.

On October 27th, he held a town hall in Damariscotta, which has a population of around 2,300 people, and 700 people attended. The irony does not fall on me that white America is rallying behind the Nazi tattoo candidate when historically the Nazis were directly influenced by white America, creating Jim Crow laws. Is this the best that white America has to offer currently? The white male former Nazi tattoo blackwater mercenary candidate vs. the white female 77-year-old Zionist Janet Mills? Will the white moderate mentality ever become the minority in America? Quote: “Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent, and determined action” (Jamal, Black, 160).