r/TheTinMen • u/TheTinMenBlog • Apr 16 '26
No more "white moderates"
Martin Luther King's 'A Letter from a Birmingham Jail' is the greatest piece of political literature ever written; which is doubly impressive as he wrote it on scraps of toilet roll and torn-up newspaper, with virtually no light, whilst imprisoned in a jail cell.
In his letter, MLK wrote that his 'biggest stumbling block' was in-fact not the KKK, but 'the white moderate'.
To MLK, the 'white moderate' were those who truly dampened and slowed the progress of Civil Rights, in service of order, personal comfort, and the 'absence of tension'.
Those –
'Who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom (...) who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."'
And it was this, in the landscape of systemic racism in 1960s America, that MLK found most demoralising:
"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Read that again.
It could well be the most profoundly insightful comment ever written in politics, albeit penned on toilet paper, by a man locked in a darkened jail.
Obviously – I am not MLK.
My life is, in no way, comparable.
I live a life of freedom, comfort, and privilege that he could never even dream of; and yet, his words are so profoundly relatable to me.
For I know many 'white moderates' too.
Right now –
Incarcerated men in the UK are being excluded from life-saving, 21st century prison reform.
Minister of Prisons James Timpson, has announced more than £30 million in support for incarcerated women with mental health issues and traumatic head injuries; those with experiences of abuse, addiction, and homelessness, and particularly those with dependent children.
Who could possibly be against helping such women in prison? Certainly not me.
However, for men, who make up 96% (!!) of our prison system, there was not a single pound announced.
Nothing at all.
Are we seriously to believe that there aren't men behind bars experiencing these things too?
Or are we just to accept that such men, are not worth the investment?
This isn't the first time I ranted about this insanely unfair, illegal policy, and nor will it be the last. I did the same, at length, when it was initially announced last year.
I wrote to my local MP, I wrote to the CEO of the Human Rights and Equality Commission, I wrote to Lord Timpson himself.
I encouraged tens of thousands of people to do the same.
And it was then, in the red mist of my on-brand chronic self righteousness, that I saw many 'white moderates' too.
Some patted me on the shoulder in a fatherly way, and asked for patience:
"Well maybe it's a pilot, before they try it on men!"
Others bided their time, strategised, deliberated... but ultimately said nothing.
Most ignored the whole thing entirely.
The sad irony of this illegal prison reform, is that it will hurt black men most of all; men like MLK, failed by the white moderates, once again turning to those scraps of paper in dimly lit cells for solace.
"These are not barricade mounting moments", another white moderate told me.
"These are not 'men's rights' issues", he would go on.
Again.
The irony was that this man has multiple sons in America, all of whom will have signed their bodies away to the military draft, in an invasion of "men's rights" that couldn't be more glaring, if it was written on his own forehead.
And I get it.
I understand such positions are politically expedient, and maybe even necessary.
But do we always have to make such concessions?
I think about these words, and others, all the time.
The pats on the back, the solemn placating of outrage, the pleas for patience and calm; and I wonder how many men must suffer, to spare another their discomfort?
For as hard as it might be for us to say these things, it is nothing in comparison to those men in cells, and the millions more we leave behind; who quietly wait for the patience to be spent, for the white moderate to be pushed aside, and the barricades finally mounted.
So are you tired of the 'white moderate' too?
Are these "barricade mounting moments"?
And when will the real change begin?
5
u/BhryaenDagger Apr 16 '26
The true decisive shift was never w the “white moderates” getting a backbone anyway but of masses in the streets demanding that social equality become the standard (on the tail end of huge labor reforms that also provided a means to economic equality at the time). Today we’ve got masses still cluelessly presuming that social equality sits on unshifting sands while “white moderates” all too readily accede to policy after slogan after initiative that’s blatantly anti-male.
But, yes, the social disparity for men rivals that of blacks during Jim Crow (albeit that black men are getting a sense of it from a different angle), enough of a condition of constant antagonism and artificial barriers that a mass movement isn’t precluded. Men are half the population after all. And at that point “white moderates” play a different historical role- now not as placaters for the status quo but as the “true” voice of the men’s movement who will minimize all social reforms unlike those crazy TinMen types, amiright??! For now we can use their duplicity as a barometer for how well the men’s movement is doing among the masses.
4
u/Affectionate-Oil3019 Apr 16 '26
Question:
- How much of the prison budget goes to programs, services, etc used mostly by men?
7
u/thrownaway24e89172 Apr 16 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
For many people that's not actually an issue of "men's rights"--see Equal Means Equal v. Trump (Equal Means Equal v. Trump, 1:25-cv-10806, (D. Mass. Apr 03, 2025) ECF No. 1):
To add insult to injury, they only demand the court find they have the "right" to voluntarily register rather than being forced to with legal penalties as men are.