We Twisted King’s Dream: "We have turned King into a milquetoast moderate"

[Better Believe It]

We Twisted King’s Dream, So We Live With His Nightmare
by Tim Wise
January 17, 2011

It’s been a rough year for Martin Luther King, Jr., and for his legacy.

First, as has become an annual ritual, politicians went to church or some other civic gathering for last year’s King Day celebration, even as they continued to support public policies that he found abhorrent. Whether continuing to prosecute a seemingly endless and most definitely murderous war, or by supporting cuts to vital social programs, there is no shortage of hypocrisy when it comes to proclaiming fealty to King’s vision in words, while besmirching it in deeds, all at once.

We have turned King into a milquetoast moderate whose agenda went little beyond the ability to sit next to white people on a bus. We’ve stripped away from the public remembrance of this man his calls for income redistribution, his insistence that the United States has become the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” and his proclamation that poverty, racism and militarism are the “triple evils” that America’s rulers have not the courage to confront.

The way in which we have forgotten or been misled about King’s legacy is never more apparent than when asking children what they know about his message. Sadly, when I have done so, the most typical answer given is that King stood for not “hitting people,” or “not hitting back if they hit you first,” or that his message would be, were he alive today, “don’t join a gang.” While all these things are true I suppose, they rather miss the point.

After all, King’s commitment to non-violence had a purpose larger than non-violence itself. Non-violence was, for King and the movement, a means to a larger end of social, political and economic justice. Non-violence was a tactic meant to topple racism and economic exploitation, and lead the world away from cataclysmic warfare. That so many young people seem not to get that part, because teachers are apparently loathe to give it to them, renders King’s non-violent message no more particularly important than the banal parental reminder that we should “use our words” to resolve conflicts, rather than our fists. Thanks, but if that message were all it took to get a national holiday named for you, my mother would have had her own years ago.

Please read the full article at:

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/01/tim_wise_kings_legacy_took_a_beating_in_2010.html#

[Catherina]

1. Rec'd. The US Empire Mocks Martin Luther King Day

Thank you BBI.

US Empire Mocks Martin Luther King Day

by Matthew Rothschild

I was watching the great Green Bay Packers game Saturday night, and at half time there was a presentation of colors. The honor guard was representing, we were told, the men and women in uniform who are protecting us in 177 countries around the world.

177 countries?

...

That fact of troops in 177 countries confirms that we are still “a society gone mad on war,” as Dr. King noted in his magnificent speech at Riverside Church entitled, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated. (All the quotes that follow are from this speech of King’s, his most profound and radical one.)

That fact of troops in 177 countries confirms that we have yet to have the “true revolution of values” that will make us “say of war: ‘This way of settling our differences is not just.’ ”

That fact—along with Bush’s war in Iraq and Obama’s war in Afghanistan and the U.S. supplying two-thirds of the global arms trade--confirms that we are still “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

That fact confirms that we still have failed to embrace “allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism.”

...

That is still going on today, and it goes by the fancy name of “globalization,” but it’s the same old neo-imperialism.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/17-3

[Better Believe It]

9. Good article. I posted it here earlier! :)

[Catherina]

17. Great minds think alike lol. Link so I can rec? n/t

[Better Believe It]

18. So true!

:)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x200839

[ananda]

2. Wouldn't you love to see a new MLK today...

... giving a firebrand dream speech on today's issues. I bet it would be something.

[RKP5637]

5. +1000 +++ n/t

[Generic Other]

3. "poverty, racism and militarism are the 'triple evils'”

Hallelujah Dr. King! Testify brother!

[ProSense]

4. Best part:

<...>

Likewise, if double-digit unemployment had been viewed as the emergency it is, when only people of color were experiencing it (as they typically have been, in good times or bad, year after year throughout this century), perhaps lawmakers might have seen fit to address the problem. But it wasn’t, and so they didn’t. And now whites are experiencing double-digit joblessness as well, for the first time in over three generations.

And if we had not long ago racialized the “have-nots” as undeserving people of color, thereby allowing racial bias to block government actions that might have been taken on their behalf—like universal health care or massive investment in job creation—perhaps we would not today have tens of millions of people, including millions of white folks, lacking access to medical treatment or job security. But we did, and so we do. And now we can witness white folks running around, speaking against health care reforms from which they would personally gain, all because of a fear that some of the benefits might go to “undeserving” immigrants of color, or lazy folks (typically perceived as black and brown) who don’t want to pay for their own care.

<...>

[villager]

6. Yet "milquetoast moderates" are today's "radicals"

Another way the Other Side has won.

At least, for now.

[fascisthunter]

7. he'd be labeled a radical liberal by Fox, no doubt

[whatchamacallit]

8. K&R :( n/t

[Atman]

10. Hey, MLK Day is considered a Holiday at the ski resorts.

After all, what better way to remember the civil rights struggles of the fifties and sixties than to participate in a mostly-white, rich-people sport? At least skiing and snowboarding is non-violent. MLK would have liked that...if they had allowed him on the slopes back then.

[frazzled]

11. Yet those to the left of King in his day criticized him as too moderate

Malcolm X, for example, called the March on Washington the "Farce on Washington," and the burgeoning black power movement found his adherence to non-violence to be too moderate.

I don't subscribe to this, but add it just to remind you that "moderation" is all relative.

[Better Believe It]

14. Malcolm's views on Dr. King and the civil rights movement changed during the last year of his life.

And most people and organizations to the "left" of King supported and participated in the great civil rights struggles and actions in the 1960's.

[Autumn]

12. K/R

"We have turned King into a milquetoast moderate whose agenda went little beyond the ability to sit next to white people on a bus. We’ve stripped away from the public remembrance of this man his calls for income redistribution, his insistence that the United States has become the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” and his proclamation that poverty, racism and militarism are the “triple evils” that America’s rulers have not the courage to confront."

We will not see any man of his caliber again. A man who saw injustice and worked to overcome it.
:kick: I could not imagine anyone in our Country today who would do the same.

[hfojvt]

13. Don't talk like he acted all by himself

There were plenty of other people involved in those struggles. People who started groups and took action long before MLK came on the scene. We have plenty of people working on those issues today too, but not as many willing to put down their playstations and take part in the struggle.

[Autumn]

15. I never said he acted all by himself, take it how you want

I posted how I felt about the man. I'm not seeing any of our leaders today standing front and center taking on poverty, racism and militarism.

:shrug:

[NOLALady]

16. You are so right.

That's what I remember. Thank heavens for Rev King. But, thank heavens that he did not act alone. There were many who stood up all over the country. Those who weren't murdered were marginalized as activists and militants.