If MLK were alive, he'd make white people just as uncomfortable as Black Lives Matter
REEPORT - Although the GOP presidential candidate race initially resembled a clown car, it has now somewhat turned into a one man show starring Donald Trump.
Although the GOP presidential candidate race initially resembled a clown car, it has now somewhat turned into a one man show starring Donald Trump.
With Trump not only doubling the nearest Republican candidate in support from registered Republicans in early CNN polls but also quickly closing in on Hillary Clinton’s extremely early lead, it’s easy to forget exactly who his competition even is. Well, one of the candidates running for office is a man named Mike Huckabee, and, fellow black people, he wants us to not only understand that racism is a “sin problem and not a skin problem” (which is as intellectually profound as saying “chlamydia isn’t a bacteria problem, it’s a hysteria problem!”) but he also wants you to know that Martin Luther King Jr. absolutely HATES black protestors who believe in protecting and attaching value to black lives.
“When I hear people scream, ‘black lives matter,’ I think, of course they do. … But all lives matter. It’s not that any life matters more than another. That’s the whole message that Dr. King tried to present, and I think he’d be appalled by the notion that we’re elevating some lives above others.”
As Black folks continue to clash with the gatekeepers of systemic racism and police brutality on and offline, the only thing more prevalent than the passive-aggressive and dismissive use of the #AllLivesMatter hashtag (which, for some reason, did not exist before black folks decided that being slaughtered in the streets by cops, security guards and vigilantes at an alarming rate was, you know, a bad thing) is the persistent bastardization of what Rev. King truly stood for.
The fact that a man who’s running to be the leader of the free world felt comfortable enough to assert that MLK, the most famous black rights activist to ever live, would be upset with a group of black rights activists for relaying the message he began propagating six decades ago is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. In the words of a tweet I read this weekend, ‘White folks would have you believe that MLK was fighting for white peoples rights.’
But here’s the brutal truth: many of King’s views would make today’s white America just as uncomfortable with him as they are with the Black Lives Matter movement.
There are several reasons Rev. King would be hated today, but I’ll highlight my top five.
1. For one, he would be against ALL wars that America is involved in.
In a speech delivered in 1967 at New York’s Riverside Church, King Jr. called the U.S. government, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That led to him receiving a lot of hate, not just from white folks but black folks as well. What many white people also don’t understand about King is that he was very consistent with his anti-violence message, which means his probable response to 9/11 would be vastly different than the typical “LET’S GIT ‘ER DONE!” bomb-happy rhetoric that was trotted out by politicians on both sides of the aisle after America was attacked on 9/11.
2. Martin Luther King would believe that socialism is a far more effective economic system for America than capitalism.
In 1952, King wrote a letter to Coretta Scott (who would become his wife a year later) where he stated, “today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.” In 1967, before he was murdered, he reiterated that sentiment in what turned out to be his final speech to the SCLC when he stated, “‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ … When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.” In country so intellectually fragile that President Barack Obama gets demonized as a socialist for correctly pointing out that far too few in this country control far too much wealth, I think it’s fair to say that King would be vehemently chastised for actually proudly embracing the s-word. Oh wait, he actually was demonized for doing just that before he was executed in Memphis.
3. Martin Luther King wouldn’t see Democrats as much better than Republicans and vice versa, because he wouldn’t trust either party.
After claiming that MLK was not actually fighting for black lives or battling against white supremacy, some white folks in the GOP love to claim that he was a Republican — which is patently false. What King actually said was, “I don’t think the Republican party is a party full of the almighty God nor is the Democratic party. They both have weaknesses … And I’m not inextricably bound to either party. The Negro has been betrayed by both the Republican and the Democratic party.”
King believed white supremacy dominated both parties and left black people out, which means he would not capitulate to self-proclaimed “progressive” white folks who love to pat themselves on the back for being “good people unlike those on the other side of the aisle.”
In fact, numerous articles detail his outright annoyance with white moderates, who he felt were more committed to passively accepting orderly injustice than assisting black folks from constantly being subjugated.
4. Martin Luther King would believe that religion should be tempered with science.
In a country where schools want to teach their students creationism as an indisputable fact, how do you think some white, God-fearing Americans would react to hearing a reverend of all people say something like Christ was not delivered through a virgin birth? Well, that is exactly what he did say. King also believed that it was ridiculous to believe that Christ would be physically resurrected on Earth, so it was pointless to presume that he was ever going to come back and “take the wheel.” Is it really a reach to say that white folks wouldn’t embrace him as a progressive, religious mind?
Most of all, I believe many white folks would hate Martin Luther King if he was alive because…
5. He would be standing in the streets of Baltimore, South Carolina, New York, Toronto and Ferguson alongside all of the other modern day activists that a lot of white folks deem to be irrational troublemakers, thugs and looters.
While conservatives assume he would be uttering phrases such as, “[Judge not] by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” in regards to men like Darren Wilson and George Zimmerman, he would actually reiterate this point from his The Other America speech,
I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. … And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
Even though people enjoy bastardizing King’s quotes in order to make him seem less like the unapologetically black revolutionary that he was and more like a racial-pacificer (which they wish he was), if he was alive today, it would be impossible for any white person to take one of his quotes, strip it of its full anti-white supremacy context, and apply it AGAINST black people. That in itself, would send Fox News into a frenzy.
The 24 hour media news cycle would constantly skewer him, seeing as most of these mainstream networks are more interested in ratings, headlines, fear-mongering and demonization than actual journalism or balanced reporting. He would be constantly challenged, undermined and trolled on every social media site he signed up on, and his personal life would be laid bare as a last-ditch effort to sidetrack his message and slander his family.
Let’s not forget, a lot of white people did hate Martin Luther King Jr., in his day.
Although the outpouring of affection at his funeral may make it seem like he died a widely loved and supported man, the truth is that a lot of his Caucasian supporters turned their backs on him when he decided to talk about other issues than voting rights. Most of the favor he curried amongst whites in his earlier years he lost as he tackled poverty and supported unions. You didn’t love Rev. King then, and you probably wouldn’t love him now either, so please refrain from misapplying his quotes and stop acting like his revolutionary goal in life, what he ultimately died for, was making it easier to be a white man in America.
Lincoln Anthony Blades can be reached via Twitter and Facebook.
