Open Letter Response #2

“Letter from Birmingham Jail”

In Martin Luther King Jr’s letter during the time of his incarceration one line in particular stood out to me: “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds”. This sentiment is the bedrock of King’s ideology and movement. He writes this letter that seems to echo with the same powerful timbre his speeches used. He is addressing the government directly and calling for the end of injustice against those who do not fit the ignorant, cookie-cutter, archetype of the American mainstream. Moreover, King calls into question the idea of a single American culture in this letter and explores the idea that America is an amalgam of cultures and people that all deserve and equal right to happiness and inequality. King is moving the chess pieces of the Civil Rights Movement from behind bars, which give his words and expense that much more urgency and raw power. He talks about how he is tired of waiting and he also expresses the difficulty of remaining civil in times of such divisiveness. He uses every ounce of emotional appeal to encourage protestors to take the higher ground of using civility as the weapon of choice to combat oppression. He also bolsters his point by using anecdotes of children being tired away from theme parks that are exclusionary to non-whites to remind people of the true cause that they fight for; equality, not bloodshed.

“Three Guineas”

Virginia Woolf uses her wit an intelligence to masterfully deflect a question to one of more pressing importance. When a man wrote her a letter which asked her advice on how to stop a war, Woolf used her status as an educated woman to pose the man, and all men, a well thought step into gender equality. Wolf uses her humor and intellect to bring the topic o center around the oppression women face under the rule of men and how inherent differences exist between the genders. The draws focus on the homeland side of the issues, leading us to the conclusion that less violence would occur if women were given the proper opportunities to speak their mind or climb to positions of power in order to present new perspective. Her retort letter uses her own brilliance as a catalyst for the frame of though that could be achieved worldwide if other women were afforded the education and skills that she possesses.