Today's the day where you see everyone quote MLK, even people who actively works against literally everything he and grassroots leaders and organizers and Civil Rights era activists, those whom came before, and those whom came after have and are still striving towards.
"Freedom", "Unity", and "Peace" are three words that even the well meaning will throw out and ask for in the spirit of MLK, but sometimes folks will do it uncritically.
They ask for freedom with pointing out what holds people in bondage today. They'll uncritically ask for unity without explaining who needs to unify or who they're asking us to unify with. They'll ask for peace and mean an absence of conflict, but Martin Luther King Jr may have advocated non-violent protests but he wasn't advocating a lack of conflict.
In the non-violent protest tension was created; tension that begged a response. King and others knew what the likely outcomes was of their protest. They knew the dangers and violence that awaited them and still they did it anyways.
[Image: Colorized photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and daughters Yolanda and Bernice King sitting for an evening meal.]
From his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, we have the following;
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Emphasis mine. Everyone wants to quote his "I Have A Dream's speech, because it is so filled with hope and while there is nothing wrong with that, lip service is paid to Martin Luther King Jr. Don't forget that he was assinated. Listen to some of his other speeches and read some of his other writing.
His Three Evils of Society Speech is espet prescient today:
And lest we forget Coretta Scott King? We'd bet not. Every inch of a champion of civil rights and justice as King;
[image: Screenshot of a Twitter post from @MsPackyetti with text and an image of Coretta Scott King.
Text: "Something is wrong when we have to feed so many. Why should there be poverty with all of our science and technology? There is no deficit in human resources- it is a deficit in human will." - Coretta Scott King #MLK #ReclaimMLK
A Queen was here too. She made us better.]
Read all of Letter From a Birmingham Jail, see King's frustration with the moderate liberal, and then see the same arguments that he and others were struggling against being made today when there's a BLM protest or when finger wagging naysayer tries to drag you into the weeds about "defund the police".
Anyways, that's all.
--silentaugur
