Perhaps the whitewashed, watered down MLK would beg to differ. He’s been reduced to like three quotes for people to slap on their Facebook profiles; for companies to paste on their messaging in February; to be trotted out once a year like Weekend at Bernie’s so people can feel the warm fuzzies inside and ignore actual, real-world racism and violence that is happening right now.
It’s like anytime someone mentions anything above a megaphone and a cardboard sign there’s always one of you that comes out of the woodwork and is like “MLK… Checkmate 😎”. As another commenter said, MLK was not the civil rights movement of his time. The reason he is the poster child for that movement in that era is specifically because his personal convictions about non-violent protest are safe for the system as it is.
Slavery can still exist, albeit in a different form. (Not chattel slavery) Racism can still exist, albeit in different forms. People who are victims of these systems are dismissed out-of-pocket because that’s the goal: the system never wanted to change, and by making MLK the summation of “the civil rights movement” in the eye of the public, they infused passivity into the discourse. They tell you to make your signs, and get your megaphones, and write your blog posts because that’s what is safe for the system to continue on as it has always been.
But have you considered how much Return on Investment you can provide shareholders by denying people life at the click of a finger? /S
Honestly, I applaud you: more people should deny these morally bankrupt jobs. But it’s sad because some don’t have the choice because pressures put on them by our shared reality. This system shakes our humanity, and in turn makes people numb to denying others humanity.