@b05df304 His arguments against “white moderates” are perfectly applicable to any other kind of political moderate though. Why do you think he only applied them to race politics? Plus, he wasn’t writing about “moderately racist people” – the letter was about people who, through a misguided vision of being moderate, kept insisting that his goals were just (so they weren’t really personally racists, just, as we would say today, insufficiently anti-racist), but the timing was wrong, a mantra that is oft repeated in many political contexts when some group wants change for the better.

Amusingly, I kinda agree that he was a moderate, since he only advocated democratic socialism, which is a moderate position from my perspective. It was, and continues to be, to the left of any of the US party positions though. He was also to the left of both parties on race, quite obviously. That’s why I vehemently disagree with calling him a “centrist” in the US context, although feel free to call him a moderate if you consider democratic socialism moderate. 

 @62f94e11 

Except not...  racism is a clear evil, it is bad in any quantity and when you facilitate others doing it through inaction it is virtually always wrong.

So yes being on the fence as to whther a minority is "equal enough" and going "thats an ok about of pain they deal with ill accept it".. is never acceptable. It is evil in all proportions.

So no,, we cant apply that to other things too often because most things are not as wholly evil as racism is. If the choice is between locking down the borders complete with no exception or having completely open boards (two radical non-moderate extremes on views)... you have something that is not wholly one sided evil... Either of those choices in their radical extreme can and will harm communities. Where moderate solutions may find actual long term workable solutions.

In fact, we find that outside of a few exceptioons most things have valid arguments on both sides where only a moderate could hope to reach a good balance effective solution that actually fixes the problems. 

 @b05df304 You could say the same about poverty or militarism – they are clearly evil, and MLK was also explicitly speaking out about them (well, in the quote I’m thinking of, he was saying “capitalism” rather than “poverty”, but that hardly helps your case). But you are arguing the less important part of the argument – MLK was clearly not a centrist, because he was to the left of both parties in the US, do you disagree with that? 

 @62f94e11 

> You could say the same about poverty

Sure poverty is fairly close to always bad (you can argue it gives character, but only if you actually get out of it at some point)..

So yes you shouldnt be "I am pro poverty I want more people to be poor!" (extreme left communism)... and you shouldnt be "I am anti poverty and I think 100% of people should be billionairs (extreme left to the point of pooling all the money and letting everyone else die).... 

Neither extreme is good, so again, we have centrism being best, where people want to eliminate the poor, but not the rich, but also accept that the middle glass should thrive. 

 @b05df304 I have the feeling you are ever so slightly strawmanning communism… but, more importantly, you are clearly avoiding the topic of the conversation. I’m not arguing whether being moderate is good or bad, but whether MLK can be accurately called a centrist.

So, do you disagree with any of the below?

MLK was a democratic socialist.
Democratic socialism was and is to the left of both US parties.
By 1 & 2 calling MLK centrist is wrong.