Amidst the fallout from last week’s shooting in Dallas, where gunman Micah Johnson killed five police officers, we need to reflect on MLK’s pragmatic triangulation. The differences between then and now are more of degree than of kind. King described one side as “a force of complacency, made up in part of…a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses.” But in 2016, the ‘do-nothingism’ of the 1960s has been replaced by a ‘do little-ism’: a similarly elite strata does just enough to give off the impression that something is being done, but not enough where something substantive is actually done. Incrementalism of the 2010s is a step forward from the ‘do-nothingism’ of the 1960s, but both are nonetheless driven by a similar force of complacency that is characteristic of elite insulation.

King described the other force as “one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence.” Whereas there are reasons to believe that this force of bitterness and hatred exists today, it is important to distinguish the characterisation of these forces. King identifies this other force with black nationalist groups and the Nation of Islam, whereas the shooter in Dallas is, as far as we know, not affiliated with any group. In both instances however, there is an element of nihilism about the inefficacy of mainstream political institutions to address issues of racial violence, to the extent that questions of reciprocity emerge, particularly relating to self-defence. If the police are persistently killing blacks and the institutions supposedly responsible for holding the police accountable find themselves incapable (or unwilling) to do anything substantive about it, then what duties and obligations do these non-rights-bearing citizens have to other members of the polity?

The incident in Dallas has nevertheless elevated this ethical question into a tactical one. Actions that were considered beyond the pale are now on the table. Extending the boundaries in such a manner is frightful, and hence raises the stakes of the political. Individuals will continue to suffer as long as systemic abuses continue to go unabated. The price of exonerating the guilty is to further expose the innocent. We have seemingly reached a breaking point wherein instances of racial violence engender a level of political exhaustion that leads some to perform the ultimate act of political nihilism.

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