People
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
This is a call to moral courage. The speaker uses death as a metaphor: a person is diminished when they won't stand up for what's right, just, or true. The repetition builds like a drumbeat, making silence in the face of wrong feel like a kind of loss.
Context reviewed