”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”
This is a comment from Reddit. I swear to god, it’s like the redditor who wrote this transcribed all the shit my racist, entitled, privileged, Boomer parents said my entire childhood. Like, word for word.
”Why do racists always invoke MLK…?”
First, you gotta understand their position, which is “Racism doesn’t exist anymore”. Because black people aren’t lynched, because there are wealthy rappers and basketball players, and because there was a black president, racism doesn’t exist in the US anymore. And this is especially important; when black people get upset about their lot in life, it is because they are lazy and want a handout rather than earning their way like white people do. When a black guy is killed by cops, he was a criminal and deserved his fate. When a black woman loses her access to food stamps, it is because she was taking advantage of the system. When black people get into college, it is because they are given special privilege they didn’t earn. And when black folks talk about reparations, it is because they want to punish innocent people so they can be handed their success rather than earn it.
Because there is no racism, and anytime some white person is called a racist it is likely because they don’t support simply handing success and money over to people who haven’t earned it, and not at all because they act racist in any way. And the term “racist” has become toxic in the US lately; people lose their jobs after being called racists unfairly. Heck, one could suggest minorities call white folks “racist” in retaliation, knowing there will be social consequences which are completely unearned. So to combat this unfair and, in their view inaccurate, narrative they employ a couple tactics;
1) “I’m not racist, you are for even suggesting it”. Since racism is defacto non-existent, playing the race-card is introducing a factor that doesn’t belong. When a black person calls a white person racist, they are not only lying, but specifically targeting someone based on their race and falsely labeling them something socially toxic with intent to cause harm. And the white person is defacto innocent because they would see anyone as insert accusation here, not just black/brown/gay/muslim/female/handicapped/immigrant people.
2) “Black people don’t know how good they have it”. Classic myopic delusion that assumes the complete lack of racism in the US also means any ongoing hurdles faced by black/brown/gay/women/etc people are their own fault. The fears behind CRT are great examples of the struggle to maintain this delusion, and not have people delve too deeply into history and see how cause/effect resulted in the current socio-economic imbalance. And since there are successes in the black community, that is proof that racism is over. Black folks had a black president, now shut up and stop making waves. There is an attempt to show that any calls of racism are not only unfounded, but examples of success in the black community disprove systemic racism; wouldn’t MLK be proud? And not only proud of the success, but would side with the white folks who are now experiencing reverse-racism as the lazy black folks ask for more. Racism, they think, is simply targeting another race purposefully, and has nothing to do with power imbalance.
3) “I earned my success, so black folks need to earn theirs”. And this is the crux of it all; white folks today don’t believe they are in a position of privilege because they work hard and their success was difficult. Many of them come from poor families, struggled to pay for college, don’t have a family history of slaver ownership. They see any minorities complaining as trying to get privilege unearned. They assume that, because there is no more racism, there is balance and parity among the races. Illegal immigrants are trying to circumvent the law, reparations and affirmative-action programs are unearned handouts, and special months/parades celebrating a particular group/race is promoting racism by giving them special attention they don’t deserve. Many white people see themselves as victims because they don’t receive any overt benefits from being white, meanwhile minorities are showered with unearned benefits all the time. The Great Replacement Theory is constantly being reenforced for them as they watch society take the side of minorities anytime someone attempts to call out this apparent imbalance in their favor.
But underneath all of this is the undeniable knowledge that they are, indeed, racist. Whether it is a jealousy, or a fear of socio-economic parity, or ethnocentricity, they know that society isn’t accepting overt racism anymore. And because of this, they have to hold back, watch what they say, watch how they treat people. “Make America Great Again” was a call to return to a time when casual racism was fun, and didn’t mean anything, and people weren’t so thin-skinned. Being “Woke” is forcing people to take difficult looks at the fact racism still exists, which is uncomfortable and threatens to challenge the current socio-economic stability, so terms like “woke” are being dismantled, misused, redirected into something that seems illegitimate. There is an active, desperate avoidance of acknowledging racism still exists, because admitting otherwise means admitting their world-view is wrong. invoking MLK isn’t done out of malicious intent, but out of desperate denial of a world that doesn’t fit their assumptions. Many, perhaps most, white folks in the US have no consciously ill will towards minorities, and would recoil in distaste at the notion of being considered racist. And they will spend all day explaining why they are perfectly justified in accepting a racist position on a topic and how that doesn’t make them racist because the minorities in question are to blame. Deflection. Denial. Dismissal. And then vote to prevent change.
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