Most of you have no idea what Dr. King actually did

[Chitown Kev]

Last edited Fri Nov 20, 2015, 03:42 PM - Edit history (3)

The idea that Dr. King's activism and work could have a different meaning for blacks than white simply never occurs to people.

Most of you have no idea what Dr. King actually did by HamdenRice (for DK)

Before I tell you what my father told me, I want to digress. Because at this point in our amnesiac national existence, my question pretty much reflects the national civic religion view of what Dr. King accomplished. He gave this great speech. Or some people say, "he marched." I was so angry at Mrs. Clinton during the primaries when she said that Dr. King marched, but it was LBJ who delivered the Civil Rights Act.

At this point, I would like to remind everyone exactly what Martin Luther King did, and it wasn't that he "marched" or gave a great speech.

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, "Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south."

Please let this sink in and and take my word and the word of my late father on this. If you are a white person who has always lived in the U.S. and never under a brutal dictatorship, you probably don't know what my father was talking about.

But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches.

He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south.

I'm guessing that most of you, especially those having come fresh from seeing The Help, may not understand what this was all about. But living in the south (and in parts of the midwest and in many ghettos of the north) was living under terrorism.

It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement used to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.

This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running. It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people.

White people also occasionally tried black people, especially black men, for crimes for which they could not conceivably be guilty. With the willing participation of white women, they often accused black men of "assault," which could be anything from rape to not taking off one's hat, to "reckless eyeballing."

Never forget that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Was hated by White America by Chauncey DeVega

We cannot forget that Dr. King was hated by most of White America while he was alive.

Once more and again, racism is not an opinion.

To wit.

Public opinion polling data from the 1960s highlights the high levels of white animus towards Dr. King, and the basic claims on human rights and citizenship made by African-Americans in the long Black Freedom Struggle and the civil rights movement.

(snip)

While there have been great shifts in white Americans' public attitudes on race and racial equality, white animus in the form of a belief that African-Americans are "too demanding" about racism, and that black people are treated "fairly" in America, echo in the present.
The latter is bizarre: in 1968 Jim and Jane Crow was still very much alive in America, the Civil Rights Movement continued, lynchings, anti-black state violence, the KKK, and American Apartheid were not dusty memories--its victims and perpetrators were still alive...the past was not even past.

Appleton continues, highlighting the power of the white racial frame, and how whiteness and white privilege distort reality for too many White American in this summary of Gallup's data:

Please stop lecturing black Americans about Dr. King.

Update: To conflate the state-enforced segregation of the Jim Crow era (North and South) that was enforced by terror in the South (and by various other means in the North) with the need and desire for black people to have "safe spaces" nowadays is intellectually dishonest.

To use Dr. King in support of that kind of conflation is intellectually despicable.

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[99th_Monkey]

2. "Dr. King marched, but it was LBJ who delivered the Civil Rights Act." <-This lame-ass HRC comment

is a great example of HRC's lame-ass milk-toast attitude on civil rights and racism .. so can
someone tell me why she keeps getting such strong support from the AA voters in the polling???

[maxsolomon]

4. Milquetoast

From Caspar Milquetoast: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/milquetoast

As to AA support of HRC: because they liked Bill? Because they know her name? Many voters pay little, if any,attention to campaigns a year out from the election.

[99th_Monkey]

8. thanks for the correction on the milk toast

I'll know next time

[Javaman]

23. I like milk toast.

you fry it, right?

lol

[GummyBearz]

6. Maybe that also means something different to black people than it does to white people

As the OP said, things can have different meanings to blacks and whites.

[Chitown Kev]

9. The reason I posted this has absolutely nothing

to do with Hillary Clinton. Please take thar BS to GDP. Thank you.

[99th_Monkey]

10. I did not know it was forbidden to mention a primary candidate's name under a GD OP

Is that a hard & fast rule on DU? If it is, I'd be happy to self-delete.

[Bubzer]

16. It's not... thats a rule for OPs, not responses.

[99th_Monkey]

24. Thank you for clarifying that. -nt-

[Bubzer]

25. Happy to oblige

[Chitown Kev]

30. I wanted to excise the Clinton portion of the quote

the point that HR made in that section was too important and I wanted the entire context to be very clear...I wasn't trying to throw shade at Hillary but I did need to get the point across about the anger that HR writes of in that portion of his post.

[Bubzer]

34. You want focus brought to the issue, I get that.

However, few issues will get the sole-focus attention that is sought, while election season is in full swing.
Most everything will be viewed, in the light of how candidate A or B stands on a topic.
Nothing we can really do about that.

[Chitown Kev]

35. True.

It's one aspect of political (and especially primary) campaign season that I do not like; everything tends to be looked at through the lens of one candidate or another.

[Bubzer]

36. The flip side of that, is that the candidate could have enormous positive impact on those issues.

So there's some good and bad with it.

[LanternWaste]

11. Especially those who pretend to know what's best for POC and other minorities

" Us white folks sure need a lot explained to us...."

Especially those who pretend to know what's best for POC and other minorities, and instruct them in who to vote for.

[yardwork]

5. Strong rec from a white woman.

It is very frustrating to hear white people excuse and rationalize terrorism - and that is, indeed, what it was and still is to some extent.

[Octafish]

7. HamdenRice used to be a DUer.

Surprised there's no mention of Vietnam or income inequality. No problem. Great article. Every word.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

20. Wasn't he banned for being a homophobe? He was tombstoned

[Octafish]

21. People said he or she was a lot of things.

From what I know, HamdenRice was a Democrat who believed all people are created equal. That's how he or she treated me.

[Prism]

28. He was banned for homophobia

It was one of the rare instances of a long-term poster being banned for it - so you know he was pretty egregious about it.

He treated LGBTers and our issues very, very poorly.

[Octafish]

32. No I didn't know. I've been accused of homophobia, misogyny, racism and being anti-German.

ALL by longtime DUers, most of whom are still here.

FTR, when asked, they couldn't show examples of any of that.

[MisterP]

12. but ultimately it's not "MLK vs. X" but "MLK and X vs. the ones who killed MLK and X"

[jalan48]

13. I recently read "Devil in the Grove", about Thurgood Marshall's work in the South in the 1940's.

What you say is true. Marshall himself, feared for his life when going into southern cities and towns to represent black people, and he was a well known attorney with the NAACP from NYC. White racists would wait at the edge of town, trying to force him off the road with the hope of lynching him in a secluded area. It's a sad commentary on not only the South but all of the US.

[valerief]

14. Big K&R

[gregcrawford]

15. An old White guy like me...

... can never know what Black people endure on a daily basis, and I can never atone for what my ancestors did. But I will tell you this: I'm a Liberal down to my DNA, but I am a Liberal who can shoot, and age has not diminished my marksmanship. If and when the racist maggots that lap up The Donald's bigoted bullshit finally start the war they so fervently desire, I will stand with People of Color.

I was only in high school in 1964, but I know that LBJ may not have signed the Civil Rights Act if Dr. King, by virtue of his activism, his eloquence, and literally standing nose to nose with him, hadn't made Johnson sign it.

[jwirr]

17. Very good article. LBJ may have been the president who

signed the bill but MLK died for it.

[McCamy Taylor]

18. Very sad attempt to use Dr. King for partisan politics.

BWT, Dr. King also pushed for equal rights for Latinos, gays and basically everyone. As did Brother Malcolm at the end of his life---which was why both men were killed. As long as they were seen as advocates for one race, they did not threaten the corporate bosses. But when they went after Divide and Conquer politics---in King's case, championing unions---they became an economic threat.

See, we all have something to share about Dr. King.

Re: LBJ, his saddest legacy is Vietnam. His greatest is Medicare/Voting Rights Act/Civil Rights Act. Who knew that a dedicated public servant could get so much done?

[Chitown Kev]

19. In this case, though, it was partisan politics on a specific issue

I would be here all day if I were to write a post on all of the things Dr. King said about the "latent prejudices" (Dr. King's words, not mine) of white liberals and the obstacles that those "latent prejudices" posed to real progress.

[mountain grammy]

22. "Our people freed themselves" yes, they did.

Excellent read from beginning to end. This old white woman agrees with all of it.

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. Thank you for posting.

[1monster]

27. May I strongly recommend Tim Reid's film, ONCE UPON A TIME WHEN WE WERE COLORED,

based on Clifton Taulbert's real life and his nonfiction book, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored. The film plays out Taulbert's life in post war Mississippi. As well as being an eye opener about life for people of color in Mississippi (and the South in general), it is a beautiful story about community.

You can watch it here:

[Duckfan]

29. I hope "most" refers to individuals who did not have the opportunity....

..to get a college education and learn what Dr. King's message was. And I am happy to say I was one of the lucky one's who did get a college education and learn about King's role in the civil rights era of the 60's. And I'll throw Gandhi in there too.

[Chitown Kev]

31. Keep this in mind though

even among black people of that time, Dr. King wasn't always that well received (and this is especially true, in some ways, in the North).

There was a wide spectrum of activities going on in the civil rights movement; I think that it's a little disingenuous for white people to simply and solely cite a few quotes about King when they know little or nothing about the whole movement, which had to do with a lot more than Dr. King.

[loyalsister]

33. To disregard the generational familial aspects of what is happening

is dismissive of the pain that drove Martin Luther King to action. In this situation young people are telling the people who were there with him that not much has changed. They hate crushing their parents and grandparents hopes. Especially the 1st generation grad students. It's not torror, but it should not be dismissed as unimportant.

[SusanCalvin]

37. Thank you.

I was in high school in the South during the 60s. Even a white person like me could see and feel what you describe, if only by empathy. We had occasion to drive from Texas to South Carolina a few times, and going through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was scary.