If MLK Were Alive, He'd Make White Folks Just as Uncomfortable as Black Lives Matter

[bravenak]

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.

http://thegrio.com/2015/08/23/if-mlk-was-alive-hed-make-white-people-just-as-uncomfortable-as-black-lives-matter/

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. He made some white people pretty uncomfortable when he was alive.

And he was a revolutionary. And it went beyond race.

I wish you'd quite making categorical race statements. I try to not talk about "black folks" as a monolithic entity.

[bravenak]

2. This is an article.

[villager]

26. Especially when he made the link to class & economics. That's when the "assassination hammer"

...came down.

Not coincidentally.

[jalan48]

41. Exactly-he was reaching across racial lines to poor white people as well.

I don't think he was trying to make the poor whites "uncomfortable". He was attacking the unjust economic system that included people of all races.

[villager]

47. Precisely -- and *that* became the real danger. nt

[bravenak]

55. The real anger was in him liberating BLACKS!!

[LiberalArkie]

81. I think he would be really pissed how for so long the non-violence has been

forgotten. I remember how the white supremacists back then would try everything to try to make the protesters become angry so they could attack and prove the protesters were violent. The protesters won because of the teachings to be non violent from MLK. Sure some got hurt and some were killed. But a small number of protesters against a very large and powerful group of whites won. The "rioting" in Ferguson delayed the outcome of peaceful protests.

The anger from the white supremes comes about when the protesters be they black, latino, indian, asian or martian prove that they are better people than the ones in control.

[bravenak]

83. Cities burned when he was murdered by white supremacists.

[LiberalArkie]

85. And the only city that did not burn was the one RFK in which spoke to the people.

[bravenak]

88. People should look up MLK's views on Riots.

[LiberalArkie]

93. "Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights -- of meeting physical force with soul force."

"I contend that the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard."

[bravenak]

96. Boom!

[villager]

98. They should also look up what he was planning with his Poor People's March on Washington. nt

[bravenak]

99. Too bad he was murdered by white supremacists for liberating blacks first.

[villager]

102. You certainly like wielding a cudgel to keep people separated from each other, eh, Bravenak?

Ironic, that.

[bravenak]

106. That was a historical fact!

The separation is the fault of white supremacy that this nation was founded on. Or that was present at the time and enveloped into our institutions. Once we fix that, we fix the separation. Blaming the people pointing out these facts is just WRONG.

[villager]

114. A little on King's assassination, in the wake of the civil trial:

<snip>

The jury also heard a tape recording of a two-hour-long confession Jowers made at a fall 1998 meeting with Martin Luther King’s son Dexter and former UN Ambassador Andrew Young. On the tape Jowers says that meetings to plan the assassination occurred at Jim’s Grill. He said planners included undercover Memphis Police Department officer Marrell McCollough (who now works for the Central Intelligence Agency, and who is referenced in the trial transcript as Merrell McCullough), MPD Lieutentant Earl Clark (who died in 1987), a third police officer, and two men Jowers did not know but thought were federal agents.

Young, who witnessed the assassination, can be heard on the tape identifying McCollough as the man kneeling beside King’s body on the balcony in a famous photograph. According to witness Cobey Vernon Smith, McCollough had infiltrated a Memphis community organizing group, the Invaders, which was working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In his trial testimony Young said the MPD intelligence agent was “the guy who ran up [the balcony stairs] with us to see Martin.

<snip>

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/MLKconExp.html

[bravenak]

126. What does this have to do with ANYTHING?

[villager]

129. Huh? After all your shouted assertions that you knew exactly who killed King? And why?

[bravenak]

131. White supremacists killed King.

[villager]

135. Ok -- links and names, please. I provided some already.

It wasn't only white supremacists, though. That's the thing.

[bravenak]

139. Ok. But they were still white supremacists. So they got help. Okay. And?

[villager]

144. They "got help?" Yeah, I guess you could minimize the role of police departments & intelligence

...agencies that way.

[bravenak]

147. Those institutions were filled with white supremacists.

Many sheriffs were, in fact, white supremacists. Some police were in the KKK. And?

[villager]

150. And... you haven't actually bothered to read what I posted/linked to, have you?

You never do.

Since your interest here isn't to actually converse/discuss/build bridges with anyone.

Kinda sad, actually.

[bravenak]

153. You do not want to build bridges with me

[villager]

163. Wrong. But if you're hectoring people instead of talking with them, how will that bridge

...ever be built?

Every reply of yours here is solely to tell me I'm WRONG (in caps, usually).

You don't read anything I offer -- and we are to take your version of history/events as the only possible version, rather than either of us (I mean the larger "us&quot trying to learn from each other and reach some kind of understanding, even if that's agreeing to disagree in some areas.

There's no comity or unity that way, Bravenak.

[bravenak]

170. This is not hectoring.

This is being brutally honest. If folks cannot handle honesty and bluntness then they are hiding from reality. My reality in this natuon is not theirs. The fact the they want me to view life from their perspective and ignore my own is very selfish.
My purpose in life is not to make people feel better about the oppression tossed towards my people, but to highlight it and say how fucked up it is. It should make them stop, think, put theirselves in my skin for a second and look at the world through my eyes. It will upset them. It is supposed to. It is liberating for all of us.

The point is not to offer up views as to why the black perspective is wrong or to find arguments aginst intersectionality or to appropriate bits of black history and culture for themselves. The point is to respect it and to give us space to voice our concerns and support US, not always having to be the ones that get to have a say OVER us, and set the agenda, and the rules, and to decide, and tell us what we should think or see or know or care about or understand.

[villager]

174. But *you're* the one supporting a white moderate for President!

So how does that square with your OP?

[bravenak]

176. They are all MODERATES to ME!

[villager]

183. Well, that's actually a pretty fair statement. As was the need for each of us respecting

...each other's life experiences.

I'm Jewish, so have had my own particular experiences in America (while admittedly being a particular version of "white," or "passing" as it were, enough to hear some very interesting things along the way...)

Nonetheless, some of us were indeed alive when King was. I, as a child, wound up breaking the news of his assassination to my mother (I'd seen the news crawl on afternoon TV), who, in turn, broke down crying.

Now, none of that means I will fully know what it means to be black in America. But King, as the great American he was, carries many layers of meaning and inspiration to very many of us, up to this present moment.

My guess, is with so many crises about to engulf us, he'd want us to come together in larger ways as well.

I hope we can, before it's too late. My breath, however, is no longer held, in that regard.

Good holidays to you, Bravenak.

[bravenak]

211. You have a good one too.

[AlbertCat]

204. White supremacists killed King.

Thank you for your deep probing insights into race relations.

They are very very revealing....

[bravenak]

206. You are very welcome.

I remember your insights as well and considered them deeply before posting.

[1StrongBlackMan]

116. Amazingly, some seem to NOT realize, they are doing exactly what the excerpt of the article ...

talks about!

[villager]

121. Amazing that unabashed supporters of self-described white moderates are doing exactly

...what the article talks about!

[1StrongBlackMan]

166. Who would those people be? And, how does that relate to me ...

But that asked, why deflect?

[villager]

167. Well, it's not for me to tinker with your own personal irony-meter

...especially with holiday rates about to kick in!

But take care -- global crises will soon have even us on DU thinking of something other than our own pointless, self-immolating pissing contests...!

[bravenak]

128. Oh, they KNOW.

[Ken Burch]

246. He wasn't killed simply for liberating blacks.

He was killed by the government for challenging the whole order of society.

You keep acting as if saying that MLK was killed for any other reason than his opposition to racism somehow steals somethig from PoC or exalts white leftists. It does neither. It honors Dr. King and all those who stood with him, most of whom were PoC.

The fight against racism is linked to the fight against human exploitation. If we have learned anything in the years since 1968, it is that the capitalist system needs continued grassroots racism in order to survive. A society run on profit and greed cannot be a
society in which all are treated as equal human beings and equal respect. It needs racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, antisemitism, trans phobia and even "colorism" among communities of color in order to keep us all divided and living at its mercy.

And it needs institutional racism to reinforce the grassroots racism.

Under capitalism, hatred fuels the machine.

[bravenak]

256. He was killed because he caused a paradigm shift on race.

[Ken Burch]

263. If he was going to be killed solely over race, they'd have killed him in 1963, not 1968.

1968 was way too after-the-fact for it simply to be about race(which Dr. King DID cause a paradigm shift over).

And it wasn't just segregationist whackjobs.

He was killed after he started speaking out against the war in Vietnam(he was the first major "mainstream" AA leader to do so), and after he announced plans for Resurrection City.

Both of which were also integral parts of the larger fight against racism and oppression.

Either way, Dr. King helped lead PoC to something close to freedom.

It's just that he saw that doing so meant speaking out on other issues and not exclusively race. If he had stuck solely to race, he would have been protected by the power structure. By 1968, opposing segregation and supporting voting rights, in and of themselves, were no longer all that threatening. Hubert Humphrey was doing that in 1968, and he was the most innocuous and "safe" person the Democratic Party could possibly have chosen that year.

[bravenak]

265. You don't think they were trying to kill him for YEARS?

Forced bussing and integration was still going on in the seventies. I went to a school once in California that had 1 other black kid. There was violence as far north as Boston over integration. I swear the history rewrites are just plain oblivious. Have to place themselves front and center, won't even let us have THAT for ourselves, imagine that.

[Ken Burch]

270. Nobody's stopping you from having anything for yourselves.

Speaking out against the war and questioning capitalism, Dr. King was still driven by the imperative of freeing people of color. Nobody is saying that didn't matter.

Dr. King still died for you. It's just that he didn't die solely for a narrow agenda. He died for deeper liberation. And so did the people of color who died before him. Nobody is dishonoring that, and there isn't a black/white division between the fight for racial equality and the fight for economic justice and equality. Dr. King fought for both, and people of color still get the great place of pride in both of those fights.

We aren't actually in disagreement.

[bravenak]

271. So.

Now we can stop saying he really died fighting the oligarchy.

[Ken Burch]

276. He fought the racists AND the oligarchy. It's just as heroic either way.

The fight against racism was always also a fight against the oligarchy. Nobody ever implied that Dr. King had abandoned the fight against racism...his economic battles were part of that fight...as it happens, had he succeeded, it would have helped other groups, but that doesn't take anything away from what the fight was about at its center.

There is no conflict between those fights, because nobody in the corporate world was fighting against racism in the Sixties-at least not in anything but the most trivial sense.

This history only got tied in to Bernie because he was falsely accused of not caring about institutional racism. His Sixties work was referenced simply to prove that wrong-NOT to equate Bernie with Dr. King(only a complete idiot would do that)OR to steal credit for white leftists where such credit wasn't due.

Bernie should have had an explicit anti-institutional racism plank in his program from the get-go. We all agree with that. He'd be leading now if he did. But he was always voting the right way(unlike HRC, who was working against the values of the freedom movement in building the DLC, a group that pushed the idea that Democrats should ignore the black community)and unlike O'Malley, Bernie didn't CAUSE black people to be murdered by the cops by basically telling them, in effect, "do whatever the hell you want". What gets me is that his lack of a reference in his stump speech was treated as being worse than years of indifferent-to-outright hostile-actions on the part of the other major candidates.

[bravenak]

281. He left it out the other day when he discussed the sanitation workers strike.

No reference to the fact that it was a strike to get blacks the same treatment and pay as whites. Because, that is what it was. Not about any other group vs the oligarchy besides black strikers. Diluted history. It needs to be explicitly stated if referenced, not used and the racial component ignored. That erases us from our own legacy.

[Ken Burch]

286. It was wrong to do that, I agree.

My theory is that he simply assumed everyone knew of the racial component-an assumption that should not have been made.

[bravenak]

287. I see it as a pattern of behavior. A part of his personality.

His fight is a different fight and he does not notice he is doing it. He should fire his campaign manager. That person is PAID GOOD MONEY to notice.

[bravenak]

266. His killer:

King was rushed to Saint Joseph Hospital, but he could not be saved and passed away shortly after his arrival. His was 39 years old at the time of his death.

James Earl Ray

James Earl Ray, a racist, most likely disliked the changes that Dr. King was involved in disliked the advancements which were being granted towards African Americans. He may have thought that if he killed one of the leaders of the movement, he could stop the change.

Ray was the sniper who most believe shot King in the neck that spring day in 1968. It is said that Ray dropped the Remington 760 Gamesmater rifle and a small personal radio which had his prison ID engraved upon it, making it possible for authorities to identify Ray as the assassin.

At first, Ray confessed to shooting Dr. King on March 10, 1969. However, three days later, he attempted to recant this confession. In his first trial, he pleaded guilty. He was sentenced for ninety-nine years in prison. However, Ray stated that he took the guilty plea on the advice of his lawyer. In fact, he stated, he was not guilty.

He attempted to blame the crime on a different man that he met in Montreal and said that this man was deeply involved in the crime. He also tried to link his brother to the assassination.


Read more at http://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/when-martin-luther-king-jr-die.html#3XbA4mmWdPips0iQ.99

[Ken Burch]

272. Dr. King's own family have questioned the idea that Ray was the killer.

And even if it was, it is increasingly clear that he didn't act alone. He had to have had assistance from the FBI or the CIA.

[bravenak]

273. Okay.

Many families think things. The evidence is what it is. My family has CT's about my Uncle's suicide. But the facts show he had polio. Polio had almost been eradicated by that time and he caught it after he had lost much of his health because of iv drug usage. It was suicide no matter how much they want to believe otherwise. Dylann Storm Roof killed many more with no help from the FBI CIA NSA or anybody else.

[Ken Burch]

138. What's so threatening in admitting that the perceived threat was in King bringing class into it?

If it had solely been about race, the white power structure would have ended Dr. King in 1963, not 1968.

Much of the reason for Jim Crow was to prevent working-class blacks and whites from making common cause. Saying that doesn't mean going easier on racism...it means being even tougher in fighting it.

In the end, it's all about liberating the global majority.

[bravenak]

220. Because it is rewriting history to place themselves front and center.

[Ken Burch]

226. For myself, I still place the freedom movement and Dr. King front and center.

The notion of a class-based coalition has never been "a white thing", or about white ego. Nor does it mean letting working-class white racism off of the hook.

If it had meant that, A. Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Nelson Mandela, in addition to the vast majority of SNCC, the Panthers, and the rank-and-file of the ANC, would not have called for it.

And tying class into it is about building the broadest coalition for basic structural change, including, at the outset, the complete eradication of racism. It truly does all tie together, and it doesn't have to leave the fight against any forms of oppression out in the cold.

[bravenak]

229. As long as people are aware of history and cultural appropriation.

If black folks are being made unconfortable by claims of Bernie being BLM 50 years before BLM, then that has to stop.
If people are subordinating the fight for racial equality by using Dr. King's legacy to lash out at BLACKS? We have a problem. The insensitivity does not help.
Telling us that his REAL fight was for economic equality FOR ALL and removing the racial component just hurts their candidate. His REAL FIGHT was first and foremost for black liberation. There were other issues he fought for, but BLACK equality was number one. Ignoring that to place themselves as the most important component erases blacks from our own civil rights movement and makes it all about themselves.

[Number23]

237. People using MLK to bludgeon black people??! The HELL you say!

Why what kind of sick, dishonest, racist, stupid individuals would do such a thing???

[bravenak]

239. I try not to use the actual words that describe such nasty souls.

Suffice to say, it makes me quite ill.

[Ken Burch]

245. I don't think anyone was saying Bernie was "BLM 50 years before BLM".

Just that his involvement as an organizer, not just a cheerleader, in the freedom movement demonstrated commitment to fighting racism (the thought being, if he didn't care and "didn't get it", why would Bernie have been an organizer for SNCC in Chicago, which was just as risky at that point as doing that in Mississippi if you know what Chicago was like at the time). It was a mistake to bring up the SNCC thing so much, but I attribute it to young people seeing a figure they admired under relentless attack and responding excessively.

Dr. King, from all I have read, never saw any distinction between fighting racism and fighting for economic justice. He believed those struggles were interlinked, and added the economic aspect back in when he saw that simply defeating Jim Crow was not enough to liberate PoC. Nobody is placing themselves before the freedom movement or Dr. King in saying that.

Economic justice is not more important than the defeat of racism...but it is a component of that struggle.

Those who ended up crushing the freedom movement in the late Sixties were defenders of capitalism, not white leftists(or black or Latino or Native American leftists, who between them were far more numerous than white leftists.

If Dr. King had left it at fighting Jim Crow, he'd have been allowed to die in bed at a peaceful old age. He was killed for going deeper in the struggle for liberation, for challenging the very nature of the system the white rich had created . They could accept the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts...it was the Poor People's Campaign that made the white power structure decide to kill him.

And for their heroism in this effort, people of all colors honor MLK and all others who died (the vast majority of whom were PoC) in the cause...a cause which is still being fought for to this day.

[bravenak]

253. I saw that EXACT QUOTE.

Dr. King did not see a distinction? Yes. He did. Most of the economic fights he fought were for BLACKS to be paid and treated equal to WHITES, not fighting FOR whites against the Oligarchy. This is what I mean. That is a complete misstatement of his stated purposes, his record of battles fought and won, and his legacy, to promote this idea that his economic fights were COLORBLIND. They were not. Even if you find quotes of him discussing fighting for poor whites, you will see that it was hidden within his larger agenda of fighting for the equality of blacks. To make it seem As if the larger piece of his agenda was pure economically based is unrealistic and painful to watch, quite frankly.

What I have viewed is the complete misue of his history, name and legacy by progressives this year most terribly. While economics is certainly a component, it is not the whole nor the most important aspect, and many are trying to make it so. Many would like to use him as a cudgel against blacks voting for clinton in a very supercilious manner. I would rather they did not.

If Dr. King had just left it at fighting Jim Crow he would be as dead as Medgar Evers. He was not killed for this imaginary reason of finally getting to the 'real' fight, as many would delude themselves into thinking, in order to give themselves claim to his legacy. He was killed because of white supremacy and opportunity. This revision of history in this era is actually startling and I think many need to look at themselves when it relates to MLK and race relations and ask themselves if they are being honest, and how their ideas make them look to the blacks that they are insulting with the idea that championing racial equality in Jim Crow would leave you safe to die of old age while fighting capitalism with NO RESULTS, would get you killed. He got results with racism, he got killed for it, not for socialism.

[Ken Burch]

274. Yes, he fought for blacks, first and foremost.

But in the Poor People's Campaign, he was building a bigger coalition than that.

Look, it isn't "either/or".

It's not as though pointing out that the struggle involved coalitions with other groups meant arguing that Dr. King was abandoning the primacy of liberating people of color, OR implying that white leftists deserve more credit that Dr. King and the black majority of the freedom movement. I haven't heard anybody saying that Bernie was Dr. King's equal in the freedom movement, and if anybody did say that, Bernie's own supporters and Bernie himself would call whoever said that out as an idiot.

Either way, we honor Dr. King's struggle. And make no attempt to steal credit for its triumphs away from him. Or to minimize race as an issue. There really isn't an argument here.

Most of us were either quite young(I was seven) when Dr. King died, or weren't born yet. We KNOW better than to try to claim credit we don't deserve.

[bravenak]

275. You seem to be trying to say the real fight was the one you mention. That is the issue.

Bigger coalition than that, as if the fight were MORE IMPORTANT.

You simply do not know how it sounds I think. I truly think so.

They do not call folks like that idiot, they echo it. They are allowed to say anything without anybody noticing the absurdity excepting myself and a few other who are called racist. Do not think that many do not hear EXACTLY what I hear. They do. Bernie did it himself the other day and I pointed that out. It is a misunderstanding of the importance of the civil rights movement and the heros and how that relates to blacks today. Some do not know how to discuss it without angering many of us and I very much wish they would just stop until they figure it out.

[Ken Burch]

279. That isn't what I meant at all.

I'm sorry I made it sound as if that was my view.

What I was saying is that the struggles were linked, and that you needed to win both to win either.

I would never mean to diminish any of your heroes.

I see them as heroes too.

[bravenak]

282. Okay.

[1StrongBlackMan]

109. Sighhh ...

You DO realize, you (and Villager) have done exactly what the article refers to in the excerpted section. Right?

[villager]

132. You DO realize the irony of your unabashed support for a white moderate, while saying this, right?

nt

[lovemydog]

223. Why do you assume he's an unabashed

Hillary supporter?

[stevenleser]

217. They won't address the substance of your comment because they cant refute it.

Their answer to your pointing out that they are behaving badly on race issues is to say "But Hillary"

[villager]

228. No, it's the answer to using the "white moderate" strawman, especially by supporters of same

That's the thing that's dodged, avoided, etc....

[stevenleser]

233. Now thats two of us who you have responded to with things that were not in our posts. nt

[villager]

235. So sayeth the expert of conflating & assumptions?

[stevenleser]

241. So Sayeth someone who can read simple English and know what's not posted. Nt

[villager]

259. Well, whatever Steven. Good holidays to you & yours however.

Take care.

[Number23]

238. Yep. And seem to honestly believe that no one sees or understands what they're doing

It is nothing short of absolutely astonishing.

[stevenleser]

242. And in 2-4 months they will deny they ever did it. Like...

No one here ever accused BLM of being a Soros funded Hillary shill organization.

Including the person I am arguing with in this subthread.

[Number23]

244. You know it. Either it was never said or it was actually secret double agent Hillary supporters

that called BLM protesters "thugs" and "subhuman" and went on endlessly how they were a pro-Hillary org "out to get" Sanders as if anyone thinks that he's particularly important.

That created 300+ rec threads where they questioned the sanity even the fucking HUMANITY of a young BLM protester because she wore a Sarah Palin button when she was in high school. My bookmarks are epic right now. It's just too damned bad for all of them that that shit actually did exist and none of us have forgotten or will allow them to pretend that it didn't.

[zeemike]

110. Yep...and I remember it well

I was in my 20s when all of that went down...and I suspect those who are making these claims were not even born then.

Yes MLK made some people uncomfortable but not by attacking white people but by insisting on equal rights for all people, and once that had been addressed by the law of the land he turned to economic justice for ALL people.

And the SCLC approach to civil rights worked (which was not to attack white people but injustice, the meaning of "keep your eyes on the prize&quot ...it changed attitudes of white people in a very short time...and it would have worked for economic equality too had he not been killed.

[villager]

141. Exactly. The final danger he posed is that we wouldn't all stay at each other's throats.

Which of course is the bitter irony of this whole thread....

[zeemike]

186. Yep, the bitter irony.n/t

[elehhhhna]

168. He didn't win the Nobel for attacking white people.

[bravenak]

171. He won it for LIBERATING BLACK PEOPLE

And he told very harsh truths about his white allies. Go read them.

[elehhhhna]

179. I am well aware of Dr. Kings history etc. and your shouting adds nothing to thus convo.

I appreciate your passion although I find your blind support of HRC to be misguided.

[bravenak]

181. I could support whom ever. They are all way to my RIGHT.

[bvar22]

249. That is odd.

Last edited Wed Nov 25, 2015, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

I've been white all my life, and MLK has never made ME "uncomfortable".
I, and my family, and friends ALL embraced him and cheered him as one of the best things ever to happen to America.
You must be young, because if you had lived through it, you wouldn't make such broad claims. I DID live through it, and many thousands of Whit People HELPED MLK because we embraced HIM, AND his words of freedom, AND his objections to WAR and the MIC.
I only wish I had the chance to vote for HIM as president, along with thousands (Millions?) of "White People".

I believe you are painting with a Broad, and severely Misinformed Brush.
Maybe you should do some research before making such GLOBAL claims on DU.
That doesn't make you look very informed.

Can you "hear" Jimi?
I can.

[brush]

252. the fact that he was assassinated shows that he made many whites uncomfortable.

[mcar]

3. K&R

[bravenak]

8. Thanks!

[yuiyoshida]

46. K&R with

a bounce!

[bravenak]

59. .

[msanthrope]

4. Damn skippy....all those who tout Bernie marching? How many of them marched with BLM? nt

[bravenak]

6. Even if they marched, they did it PATERNALISTICALLY.

[msanthrope]

14. I would disbelieve any marching clains. nt

[bravenak]

57. I believe nothing without video. Even then....

[freshwest]

20. Yes, I remember the pics of them rushing to the front and middle of some protests. Couldn't bear to

have a moment of silence to see, hear and experience the history in the making. Just wanting to be in charge as always. Sad stuff.

My reaction to the protest of lives slaughtered is awed silence, for I am alive and AAs are still willing to teach me. It's time to bow down to their experience.

Some love being willfully ignorant, they can't hear anything said to them to heal the country. When will they tire of the sound of their own voices, echoing back to them as they stand at the edge of the cliff?

[bravenak]

21. Some will never stop trying to make it all about themselves. Sad.

[AlbertCat]

207. Some will never stop trying to make it all about themselves. Sad.

Oh the irony!

[bravenak]

208. It was never about them and never will be. They want in on it and to get to make the rules. LOL

[mr blur]

212. Are you quite well? You seem to be getting closer and closer to the line which,

for most of us, separates what goes on in our heads from what we are pleased to recognise as "Reality"

[p style= text-align:center;color:#000000;][font size="1"]note for almost-inevitable alert-trolled jury:
I don't care what colour Bravenak is or who she votes for; [br ]I am neither a White Supremist nor a member of the KKK;[br]I have not been stalking her online or writing fan-mail (or, indeed, hate-mail) to her [br ]or trying to turn the world (or DU or Hillary Clinton) against her;[br ][br ]I just wish that she would calm down and start making some sense before before she becomes too far gone to crawl out from under the massive chip on her shoulder.

[bravenak]

213. I am very well.

[AlbertCat]

215. Are you quite well? You seem to be getting closer and closer to the line which....

"Some will never stop trying to make it all about themselves. Sad."

[randys1]

28. Beautiful sentiments.

[Ken Burch]

248. Meaning what?

And how can you know that?

[bravenak]

254. By the attitude that remains.

If you do what you do SELFLESSLY, it is obvious because you do not later use it for your own gain.

[Ken Burch]

267. If someone is accused, wrongly, of NOT marching in support of BLM

is it selfish of them to defend themselves by pointing out that they did? Must they let false accusations stand just because of who makes those accusations? How would doing that even help?

In the march I was in(in SF, in November or December 2014-I forget the month)there was a large contingent of white marchers(the majority was PoC), but PoC were leading the march and everybody seemed to accept that.

At that point, Bernie wasn't in the race, so there was no way to tell who was supporting which presidential candidate. People weren't wearing campaign buttons for anyone, from what I could see.

I get it that you are angry at some of Bernie's supporters for saying intemperate things, but how is it fair to say that none of them were in those marches, or that the only ones who were were there for selfish reasons?

How does accusing people of wrongs you have no way of knowing they even committed achieve any goal at all?

How does putting people on the defensive for the sake of putting people on the defensive make anything better?

[bravenak]

268. But nobody was accusing you of NOT marching!

[Ken Burch]

277. If I read your post upthread right, you seemed to be saying that NO Sanders supporters marched.

Is that what you meant to say?

There's no possible way to justify such a sweeping smear on such a large group of people.

[bravenak]

278. That is not exactly what I meant at all.

If they did they did it paternalistically does not mean they did not do it, just that they did not do it for the reasons I would want.

[Ken Burch]

284. I don't think you can even assume they did it paternalistically.

When you say that, it sounds as if you are denying that any could have marched simply because they saw the importance of the issue and because they(we) also sincerely believe that police violence against PoC is a crime against humanity.

And when you say things like that, it also sounds as if you just won't LET Sanders supporters(an increasing number of whom are PoC)be on your side. And I can't understand why anyone would turn away potential allies in ANY struggle. Tactically, how does it ever help to limit your support base to the smallest number possible?

[bravenak]

285. I can when they use it to get credit and accolades.

If they were sincere they would not bring it up just to get credit.

[Ken Burch]

288. I think they're mainly doing it to show they are on your side.

In response to accusations of not getting it and not caring.

In any struggle for change, at some point you have to take the risk of trying to trust people you don't know that well.

[bravenak]

289. Many are.

When they misunderstand a point they are quick to bring it up as a defense aginst learning or getting told they are wrong about something.

[Live and Learn]

363. Oh bother. nt

[bravenak]

364. Here:

Paternalism

Paternalism (or parentalism) is behavior, by a person, organization or state, which limits some person or group's liberty or autonomy for what is presumed to be that person's or group's own good.[1] Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expresses an attitude of superiority.[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism

[Live and Learn]

365. Now who is being paternalistic? nt

[bravenak]

366. The same people as always.

[Live and Learn]

367. That was truly enlightening. nt

[bravenak]

368. I'm glad.nt

[Live and Learn]

369. Nice to see you happy. nt

[Ken Burch]

247. A lot of us did. And with full respect to the leadership of the marches. n/t.

[MaggieD]

5. Indeed

Thanks for this article.

[bravenak]

7. .

[ProudToBeLiberal]

9. Well, I think you have to look at the historical context

There were two competing visions for America during the Civil Rights era between MLK Jr. and Malcolm X. Between the message of change through non-violence and black power, the majority of the public gravitating towards MLK Jr.

If he were alive today, I have no doubt he would have become an elected politician. He was politically savvy and he realized that a lot of changes for blacks had to be made through the political process. I think he would be in a similar position as John Lewis, but more revered.

[bravenak]

11. MalcolmX was needed for Mlk to be heard. Carrot and Stick.

There has been no progress since his death. Just equivocation and appropriation.

[ProudToBeLiberal]

19. So, are you saying we need a Malcolm X today, so Black Lives Matter can be heard?

We already had the Black Panther parties in the 70s and they alienated the public. They were military revolutionaries that argued chang could only come through violent means.

I'm not sure having people turn violent, so BLM can be heard is the right way to go. I would argue that Reverend Jesse Jackson and his rainbow coalition did a lot more in the 80s for PoC than the Black Panthers.

[bravenak]

22. I never said I wanted people to turn violent.

[randys1]

33. No they didnt, Black Panthers said they had a right to defend themselves

At its inception in October 1966, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members.[4] The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics.[5][6][

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party

We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
We want full employment for our people.
We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community.
We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

[Lilith Rising]

187. Thank you! And amen.

[randys1]

190. Reminds me of the shit they say about Rev Wright...To hear some folks tell it, Wright

was or is a violent anarchist.

He is nothing of the sort, just a truth teller and that can get you in a whole lot of trouble here in America

[Lilith Rising]

195. Yes and it looks rather like

some of those chickens ARE coming home to roost...

[AgingAmerican]

293. The Black Panthers arose to fight police abuse

Of African Americans in inner city neighborhoods. They weren't military revolutionaries, though the police treated them as such and used that as an excuse to execute as many of them as they could. They existed to protect their neighborhoods from the cops.

[freshwest]

68. I remember the stick applied after MLK was killed very well. America burned. It may not have been

what MLK or Malcolm would want, but white America saw they'd yanked the quietly borne chains by the silencing of the spiritual leader of non-violence.

Many will not admit it, in order to maintain their own comfort, but in the back of the minds of those who lived through those days, it is there. Brute force met brute force, for easy to understand reasons. The results cannot be denied.

Politicians made changes because the myths they'd been taught growing up were not telling the full story. It took seeing that fury to see just how insane the USA had always been.

It's survival time:

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

~ Frederick Douglass

I learned those words at our public school, just like the politicians had. I don't see how anyone can forget this, if they lived then or thought things out logically. The universe will balance itself.

[bravenak]

71. Yep.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

[lovemydog]

10. Thanks.

He'd also be making many self-professed liberals uncomfortable.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones my friend.

[bravenak]

12. Damn straight!!! Happy Turkey Day.

You know I'm anti anti anti. Do not like the pilgrims.

[lovemydog]

15. I don't like any coopting or butchering of any messages

as significant as that of love and justice for all our brothers and sisters.

Grateful there are others like this too.

I will keep on keeping on. Just saying my views. Like you too. People can take it or leave it. I will never sit idly by when I see people trying to claim who King would endorse or who Muhammed would endorse or who Jesus would endorse. That's all a bunch of inane speculation and baloney.

[bravenak]

17. Exactly. Merely speculation. Nothing more. Bloviating.

[lovemydog]

35. Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Makes anyone look bad. There are also people who try and claim Dr. King was conservative republican. It's all a crock. His message transcended politics. That's one reason he never ran for office. He was a preacher and intellectual first and foremost. He felt the times also demanded political action. I really wish people would read more books by and about him before doing all the bloviating. Just makes them look ignorant as heck, regardless of what they claim.

[MeNMyVolt]

13. K&R!

Two excellent OPs today, Brave.

[bravenak]

87. Thank you!

[bravenak]

18. HE WAS SHOT BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK

[bravenak]

65. No

Race was everything

[7962]

34. White civil rights workers were killed too. Thats why he wasnt killed just for being black.

It was because he was succeeding at changing what always had been. Those whites who were killed were helping that cause and so they, too, were killed.
They were all a threat to the status quo.

[bravenak]

38. He was succeding at liberating BLACKS!

Many more blacks were killed than whites. I honor those whites who sacrificed their lives as well.

[bravenak]

49. He was fighting for the liberation of blacks regardless of who was listening or wanted in on it.

[bravenak]

52. You do not know what things meant to Dr King

[bravenak]

62. Thank you.

I do not trust any politician. Any of them.

[Gore1FL]

75. In this thread you seem to try to speak for both him and his assailants

Why be critical of others for the same sort of hypothesizing?

[bravenak]

76. I used his words. Show me where I said what he would do today.

Link?

[SunSeeker]

216. Exactly. No one assassinated Eugene Debs. nt

[bravenak]

218. My goodness. Some folks..

[SunSeeker]

221. I just noticed the person you were responding to just got "auto removed."

LOL

[bravenak]

222. Awww! LOL!

[freshwest]

255. Or Medgar Evers, the little girls in the church, or godknows who many others... n/t

[freshwest]

257. YES, HE WAS! n/t

[bravenak]

258. THANK YOU!

[leftofcool]

31. Horseshit!

[freshwest]

105. Horseshit is the preferred fertilizer for growing mushrooms, who are kept in the dark.

Yet the mushrooms grown in it are still white. Why is that?

You Can't Explain That.

Leftofcool, it's expected that you will yield to the endless propaganda.

Just listen carefully. Watch the shiny thing. Good. You are getting very sleepy. Now strip your clothes off and go out onto the lawn. Now sing a Billy Ray Cyrus tune as if you really mean it. Perfect.

*Oh, now put your clothes back on. I did not want to see that after all.*

Have a nice holiday!

[leftofcool]

148. Horseshit is saying MLK wasn't shot because he was Black

And you know it.

[freshwest]

250. I know that, *everyone* does. I see my attempt to lighten up the thread failed. Sorry, Bravenak. n/t

[BootinUp]

56. Simply amazed you would try to make a distinction like that. nt

[Cassiopeia]

23. So what can those uncomfortable white people do?

BLM needs the help from those uncomfortable white people. How can they help?

[NCTraveler]

25. Good information here on how uncomfortable white people can help.

http://blacklivesmatter.com/

[randys1]

36. Sure is a lot of lecturing going on here, as usual.

Funny how that happens, all these white experts on MLK


(remember, I use your post to respond to others so I can hopefully not be silenced and because I have no desire to talk to certain folks around here)

[NCTraveler]

43. Love the women for Obama image in your sig line.

I'm not too sure about the person who asked the question and their intentions but there really is a lot of good information on how to help at that link.

Tons of lecturing. Agreed.

[randys1]

79. Thanks, i have that in my sig now, for a while that url wasnt happening.

I would love to be in a big city at the same time a protest march is happening, I managed to get in one in Seattle last year

[Kentonio]

299. Interesting.

So you think a young black person born long after King was murdered has a better understanding of MLK and the civil rights movement than a white person who lived through that time? Why is that exactly?

I can definitely go along with them having a far better understanding of racial discrimination (obviously) but when you get into historical figures and how society worked at that time, there is generally no better source than having been there.

Just speaking as a history nerd, people usually don't understand history very well, and make assumptions based on the world as they know it, rather than the world as it was then. That isn't an attack on anyone, but it is sadly true. It's incredibly hard to live in a relatively peaceful time and really understand what it was like to live through a wildly turbulent period of history. When you talk about people 'lecturing', perhaps its worth finding out what their relevant experiences are first, because there are people here (not me I want to make clear) that were actually there at the time, and their experiences and knowledge should not be written off so cheaply.

[bravenak]

370. If you look, you can see that I am GOOD at history.

Studying Art history right now. As you know as a history buff, we started making marks to create art before we ever created a writing system. I love history and see people with a shallow view of it.
Just watch people. Notice where they leave stuff out. You'll see soon how much more I know than I will ever be given credit for. Most of these folks never even read one slave narrative or any accounts from regular people in the fight, yet they try to kecture and do it paternalistically, hence the push back. I have been reading history since I was two. I lived through the LA riots, it is all related.
Many are here just to give a self serving view of history and politics in general. Heck, look at how much is left out of our books!
Many folks will say they did stuff in retrospect that they did not do at the time. You can tell by their lack of full understanding of it now, that they were not in it then. History is being made right now as we speak.

[Kentonio]

371. True to a point

Although I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, because we all view history through a lens formed from our own perspective and life experiences. I think its better to provide evidence to show people are mistaken and then see whether they are willing to process the new information or just refuse to consider it. That to me tells the most about whether someone is willfully revising history or not.

[bravenak]

372. If they double down I know for sure.

If they look it up, they will stop repeating nonsense. That is my method for knowing whether it is deliberate.

[bravenak]

29. Just be aware. Self awareness and cultural sensitivity.

[NCTraveler]

24. Hammer meet nail.

BLM really is making many feel uncomfortable. I still can't get passed how a member of BLM was called a racist over and over right here on du. I would say this election has sent us into bizzaro world. Fact is the masks are just coming off and this is the reality many have been telling us about.

[bravenak]

27. Damn straight. We are not supposed to notice that!!

[lovemydog]

61. The subtle and not so subtle ignorance

that breeds hatred has been evident here for quite some time. As long as I've been posting here at least. And if you read histories of King, Malcom, Angela, etc., it's been there long ago too. I don't pretend it will go away. I do hope that people read more books by and about these great people.

[7962]

30. I seriously doubt it. Thats why he was victorious.

Cute quote, but its only an opinion. MLK was a smart man and he KNEW what it took to win, and he used that strategy well. And it worked. He knew he needed more than black people on his side and he knew violence would be counterproductive. And he was right.
When I see FB friends who always support progressive causes with their votes, money and actions, saying the the BLM people have lost them, that tells me a lot. And it tells me that more and more people are just tuning out whenever they hear a BLM story.

[bravenak]

50. Umm hmm

[randys1]

39. Yep BLM makes some white folks uncomfy or unhappy because they have NO control

over it, is why.

They keep saying "just calm down and do it the way us white folk tell you to do it and then we will support you"

thank GOD BLM is NOT listening

[bravenak]

42. Right on Randy!

[aikoaiko]

307. Actually BLM toned down their protests quite a bit after pushback from Seattle

They take no for an answer now when it came to protesting HRC

[bravenak]

315. No they didn't.

They toned nothing down. They actually demanded more than the mic after that. They wanted a BLM debate. The protests continue. Hillary had a BUNCH of black folks at her rally that they went to. They told BLM that they were ALREADY discussing police violence and to join or leave. And they were removed.
The pushback from Seattle just ruined Bernie's shot at the black vote, people should have followed his lead instead of 'pushing back' against activists in a life or death struggle.

[aikoaiko]

325. The first time BLM protested HRC they waited patiently in a "overflow" room.

The second time they protested they agreed to leave when told to go.

No one jumped on stage and demanded the mic.


BLM is doing respectability politics now and it's because of the pushback. Trying to hold a debate is a prime example.

[bravenak]

328. She has security.

He should have had security.

If you think they are doing respectability politics, you must have missed they guy getting beat up at a Trump rally.

[aikoaiko]

361. There was no attempt to get past security. BLM played nice for HRC

With Bernie they pushed past security.

The BLM protestor at the Trump rally is a brave soul. Again I'm glad to see some of the criticisms of BLM tactics has led them to protest republicans. Remember how BLM claimed they weren't interested in protesting the GOP?

Those trump thugs would have beaten MLK if they could. Respectability politics or not.

[bravenak]

362. Nobody tries to get past the secret service to get to a former First Lady unless they wish for pain.

[aikoaiko]

373. Maybe, but they might have ushered HRC out of the event

The Secret Service have no record of excessive force.

The BLM had their chance to disrupt an HRC event but they chose not to after Seattle.

[AgingAmerican]

44. Republicans, yes

Democrats, no.

You don't even understand the basics of Democratic and Liberal ideology. It seems to always be clouded by skin color, anger, arrogance and hatred.

Hatred poisons integrity. Get help.

[bravenak]

54. I understand more than just the ideology.

[William769]

45. Kick & highly recommended!

[bravenak]

53. Thank you!!!

[wendylaroux]

72. you are so good bravenak

I will give you that.You are good.lol

[bravenak]

73. Ummm hmmm

[Agnosticsherbet]

60. I was a kid and I lived in a sundown town, and MLK did make White Folks very uncomfortable.

He spoke truth to power.

[bravenak]

63. He did. Very.

[ismnotwasm]

64. K&R

[McCamy Taylor]

66. 25% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth.

I presume these are the Americans you are talking about. None of the white folks I knew in 1967 felt uncomfortable about Dr. King.

Remember, racism hurts everyone involved. When you base your self esteem upon your "superiority" towards others, you have no self esteem---and so you are constantly being hateful to those others in order to massage your own ego. And any hate we show towards others boomerangs back upon our selves.

[bravenak]

69. If you read back.

You will see that he made MANY uncomfortable. It is only recently that folks fell in love with him. After he was long dead... They are starting it with MalcolmX oo.

[BlueCaliDem]

67. That's exactly the sense I'm getting, as well, bravenak. MLK was a revolutionary by any standard

today, the same standard as #BlackLivesMatter. He was a strong leader and revolutionist, too, or he wouldn't have caught the attention of millions of Americans on either side of the innate racial divide in this and other countries.

Thank you for the link to The Grio article. It was an eyeopening read!

[bravenak]

74. It is like Freshwest reminded me:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Period.

[jalan48]

77. Like Ghandi, MLK was a great man who's message reached out to all people.

[bravenak]

82. But was intended for the liberation of African americans, not to be used as a cudgel AGAINST Blacks.

[jalan48]

84. Definately not as a cudgel against blacks.

[bravenak]

90. Then I guess the Stockholm syndrome stuff should stop

[jalan48]

107. I don't know about the Stockholm syndrome.

There have been a number of black activists who have worked at liberating blacks, Eldridge Cleaver and Angela Davis come to mind during that time period. I think MLK was the most successful because he reached across racial lines in a way that people understood. He was like Gandhi in this respect. He's one of the great men in history who was killed, I believe, for posing a real threat to the existing power structure.

[bravenak]

111. GOOD. Do not read about it. Keep your mind clear from garbage.

MLK had a 20 percent approval rating with whites when he died.

[jalan48]

119. His message still resonates today. We were lucky to have him with us for the short time he was here.

[bravenak]

125. So true!

[AlbertCat]

214. Like Ghandi, MLK was a great man who's message reached out to all people.

This is where he got his Satyagraha techniques from. King continually talk about all people getting together.

And you don't have to be black to know that.

[Texas Blues]

78. MLK was only the start.

We still have over 500 years of institutionalized and nationalized white oppression over minorities to overcome, and won't happen overnight. This will take generations of constant education of whites about our privilege and how we must be careful on disbursing it.

[bravenak]

80. Thank you for the thread winning post. I agree.

[blackspade]

112. It will take Whites being a minority in this country for the first time...

for it to finally sink in (around 2050).
And that my friends will be a glorious day.

[restorefreedom]

86. i like to think that had mlk not been murdered,

blm would have a lot less to do.

[bravenak]

103. Me too

[Hiraeth]

137. I like the way you think. Can I sit by you?

[restorefreedom]

230. come on over, the seat's warm and there's hot chocolate! :) nt

[Hiraeth]

243. ... and I've got some popcorn, Thanks!

<---- have some, de-lish

[restorefreedom]

251. yum! popcorn and hot choc, doesn't get much better than that..:) nt

[lovemydog]

89. Also, his popularity among white people at the time of his assassination

was incredibly low. As I recall from what I remember reading, it was below 20%. People were turning against him for having come out against the Vietnam War. And for his poor people's movement. And for standing with black sanitation workers in Memphis who wanted the right to organize.

He had a lot of criticism of white liberals in the north who talked a big game but failed to walk the walk. He said that in Chicago and other places up North, many liberals would tell him what he wanted to hear but then go about not doing a damn thing. People were saying he was being funded by communists from the Soviet Union. That he should stick just to civil rights. Or to preaching. Not get involved in other matters. I've learned all this from reading books about him. By people who were with him.

[bravenak]

92. Damn straight.

They left him hanging.

[revmclaren]

91. As an old white guy...

Even I can see that P.O.C. don't care about someone who marched with MLK 50 years ago, they want someone who will march with them NOW!

[bravenak]

101. Bingo!

[leftofcool]

151. Thread winner!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BootinUp]

188. That was good. nt

[blackspade]

94. Possibly even more uncomfortable.

[bravenak]

100. I like to think so!

[blackspade]

120. You and me both.

The cage of power needs to be broken and white supremacy acknowledged for what it is.
A hegemonic process that silences the voices of descent.

[MisterP]

95. it's not MLK vs. Malcolm X, but MLK and Malcolm X vs. the guys who killed them

[bravenak]

97. And vs. the guys who misuse their legacy to cudgel blacks

[Romulox]

117. Hillary Clinton isn't black. nt

[bravenak]

124. Who said she was? We do support her though. Most of us and hispanics and women.

3 historically oppressed groups. I have no checked how she polls with native americans. I live in a state with a very high NA population comparitively. Very hard to poll the villiages.

[Romulox]

127. Nobody is "cudgeling blacks". Big Mike tore Hillary Clinton up, though. nt

[bravenak]

130. Oooooh! You mean the guy who got a Grammy off of OUTKAST?

Never got a solo, tho. I'll take snoop all day. And Katy Perry. And Kanye, unless he Ben Carsons. And Pharell. And....

[Romulox]

134. He had one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2014. Look it up. nt

[bravenak]

142. So? Best selling? Widest distribution?

There are books called CLASSICS that i think suck.

[Romulox]

145. You're flailing, now. nt

[bravenak]

157. Ummm hmmm

[leftofcool]

156. No, he didn't!

And I am glad he endorsed Bernie. The last person I want endorsing my candidate is someone who uses "killer" as a first name. I don't give a damn how many albums he sells.

[bravenak]

161. Or invokes that WOMAN as a comparison point.

[Romulox]

164. You don't know anything about hip hop. That's obvious. nt

[Jack Rabbit]

104. Dr King died when I was 16 and was already a hero to me

It wasn't unusual for young people in their mid-teens growing up during the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement to be more politically aware than they are now. In those days, watching Walter Cronkite every evening for half an hour left one more informed about national and international events than watching CNN all day does now.

Martin Luther King did, in fact, make white people uncomfortable. He had no use for white supremacy and said so. However, he was a man whose life's work was to unite people of good will together to work for justice. Justice is simply not compatible with any system of rigid hierarchy, including white supremacy. White supremacy was the idea underpinning not only the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but European imperialism through the mid-twentieth century and the neocolonialism of US foreign policy as manifested by the Vietnam War and, more recently, the invasion of Iraq; it goes a long ways to explain why invading Afghanistan morphed from a quest to apprehend Osama bin Laden into America's longest war.

Dr. King had a deceptively calm and comforting manner that didn't scare some white people as much as Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael or Eldridge Cleaver.

I recommend this thread, but please clink on the link in Bravenak's OP and read the entire article, which is quite good and gives a much better understanding of Dr. King in the context of his time and why the author of the article feels Dr. King would take the stands on today's issues that he ascribes to him.

[bravenak]

108. Yes. They should click the link. It is very good and in depth.

[GitRDun]

113. MLK and social media would have been AWESOME to watch!

The tidal wave of exposure to white privilege, lack of economic justice, police malfeasance would have been truly revolutionary.

He would have torn these sniveling, unresponsive politicians apart (verbally of course).

The corporate media would have been falling all over themselves for the big MLK "get"!

There will be another...I pray..

[bravenak]

118. I might mess around and have to Angela Davis. Stress me out.

[Romulox]

115. There's just no way to Triangulate MLK's message into support for Goldman Sachs. nt

[bravenak]

133. Or into support for ANYBODY over Blacks.

[Romulox]

140. That's as historically inaccurate as your "White progressive" non-quote. nt

[bravenak]

143. Not

[Romulox]

149. You don't have an argument. nt

[bravenak]

155. Won before this started.

[Romulox]

162. You're comfortable with the cognitive dissonance of invoking MLK in support of the RW candidate.

That's not a victory.

[bravenak]

175. Opposite day

[Romulox]

177. Hillary is the more Rightwing candidate. It's just objective fact. nt

[bravenak]

180. They Are all moderates to me. I compare to myself. I'm over here, they are waaaaaay to my right.

I need binoculars to tell them apart.

[Romulox]

182. You're still supporting the more Rightwing candidate. We shall know you by your fruits.

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

[bravenak]

191. Because the fruits on the other side are sour.

[sheshe2]

290. Lol~

Binoculars. Can you see them from your kitchen window?

Great thread bravenak. Sorry I missed it earlier, just got home from work.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours my friend.

[bravenak]

291. Happy Tday!

Girl, this thread was tiring. I'm sleepy now.

[sheshe2]

292. Great Tday to you too!~

Love you!

[leftofcool]

165. Good Gawd!

Baby sistah, you must take these posts to the AA forum. At least there you won't get so much splainin' Know what I mean.

[bravenak]

173. For real

[elehhhhna]

184. But some will desperately try. Every day, all day.

Maybe they should vote for Cruz. He's married to GS partner.

[Ken Burch]

122. Agreed.

I'm pretty sure he'd never endorse the least-progressive candidate in any Democratic primary, though.

[bravenak]

136. I'm pretty sure we cannot know. He was VERY religious.

[Ken Burch]

146. Well, yes, but what does that have to do with it?

A lot of very religious figures have also been radicals and, yes, socialists.

[bravenak]

152. He was a radical.

I know black religious radicals who hate republicans but oppose abortion MORE. Some won't even vote. We do not know WHO any dead person would choose or not choose. We do not know how the culture wars would have affected their ideology. John Lewis was very radical and he supports Clinton.

[Ken Burch]

219. OK. That is true

Cesar Chavez and the Berrigan Brothers were Catholic radicals and staunch opponents of abortion, as was Jesse Jackson at one point(he once described abortion as "black genocide".

I always learn from your posts, even if we don't always agree. Thank you for not always being comfortable.

[PatrickforO]

123. Sure he would.

Besides we white liberals, he'd make the hate-talk-propaganda and the Fox 'news' heads VERY uncomfortable.

Now that you mention it, if Jesus came back to earth and started talking like in Matthew Ch. 5-7, he'd by universally repudiated by the 'christian' right. No doubt there.

Because both MLK and Jesus as depicted in the bible were pretty hard core democratic socialists.

Oops! Did I say that???

[bravenak]

159. True

[Maedhros]

154. Doesn't make me uncomfortable.

[bravenak]

160. You know what? I'm glad. It really shouldn't.

[geardaddy]

158. K and R

[MrScorpio]

172. Bingo…

I took the opportunity to do that very thing with his quotes today, as a matter of fact.

[bravenak]

178. His poor quotes suffer so much abuse and degradation.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

185. His period was still dealing with white people who thought black people weren't even human....

"Indians" (Native Americans) were considered to be "savages" too.

[bravenak]

198. Those people still exist. Dylann Storm Roof. Period.

Look at the rapes near Reservations. Period. Thx!

[Vattel]

189. Especially hawkish white folks like Clinton

[bravenak]

194. Especially ones who bring up marching with him

[2pooped2pop]

192. and he's probably be meeting with Bernie Sanders

because they both fight for similar things.

[bravenak]

193. Nobody knows. Speculation.

[2pooped2pop]

196. yes, but isn't the story you linked to also speculation?

and given the Bernie met with MLK's daughter....

[bravenak]

197. Do you know much about his daughter? Go read up. Then let me know if she is awesome.

[2pooped2pop]

199. I didn't say she is awesome

and I don't think I would agree 100% with anyone.

[bravenak]

201. You will not agree with her.

[Starry Messenger]

200. Just ask John Lewis' poor FB page.

We live in interesting times.

[bravenak]

202. I saw it.

[retrowire]

203. This is truth.

The only reason MLK is accepted today as well as he is is because history books have presented him as a sort of savior.

But during that time he was seen as a disruptor and a menace by many.

[bravenak]

205. .

[F4lconF16]

209. K and effin R

Y'all already know this, but half the time I spend talking to people about BLM is telling people to stfu about MLK.

He was a radical. Unlike certain modern heroes, he was BLM 50 years before BLM. Because he recognized the value of black life.

And yeah, he did and STILL does make white folks uncomfortable as hell. Recognizing black lives matter basically guarantees that we have to recognize our own white supremacy (not that we're supremacists, uncomfortable white people on this board who are getting pissed already), and that freaks us the hell out.

[bravenak]

210. You are so funny!

Yes, he WAS BLM 50 years before BLM. It can be confortable for some to see him as he was. The nostalgia is a smokescreen.

[Romulox]

224. We don't know who Dr. King would support. But there's no reason to think it would be Hillary. nt

[bravenak]

225. I have no reason to make guesses. He is dead.

[riversedge]

227. And no reason to think he would endorse Sanders either.

[virgogal]

231. Most people never heard,or care about,BLM.

Lots of folks just don't keep up on things.

[bravenak]

232. That's nice.

[Lilith Rising]

240. My 80 year old (white) mom knows BLM

and is 100% behind them in their activism.

[virgogal]

384. Hmmmm! I'm an 80 year old white Mom. Odd coincidence.

[mythology]

234. The author greatly underestimates the GOP

if he thinks they couldn't take a quote out of context. They do it all the time.

But I suspect that many people who claim the King legacy would be disappointed and uncomfortable if King was alive today. King had multiple goals and none of us know how he would have evolved. Even his own family is divided on how he would have looked at same sex marriage. Likewise, nobody knows how our society would have evolved if a leader like King who had great success in having Jim Crow laws removed and getting the Voting/Civil Rights acts passed. Could he have made a transformational change to our economic system or our criminal justice system that would have shifted society? We don't know.

Anybody, including the author of this piece, who claims to know for certain what King would make people feel today, is just speaking from their own view on what King would do.

[bravenak]

236. You are correct in my opinion. They can twist ANY QUOTE.

But the idea that he would make them uncomfortable rings true. My family and I discuss how he would see the abortion issue. I think it is interesting what we came up with based on the fact that we have many black clergy in our family. Democrats, true, but they are not any of them in favor of abortion.

[Empowerer]

261. Dr. King STILL makes many white people uncomfortable

That's why they had to turn him into something he never was but that feels much safer and more palatable.

[bravenak]

262. You have it exactly right.

[SusanCalvin]

264. Good article, thanks.

Spot on, if you ask me.

[bravenak]

269. It sure was, thank you.

[WillyT]

280. Were You... Or Author, Lincoln A. Blades, Alive When Martin Luther King, Jr. Was ???

I ask, because I've been told using dead people a s a model for progress is... "sick".

Many of us have been told in fact, that we didn't "get" MLK, like people who did not live through it do.

Jesus Christ, Galileo, the ENTIRE Renaissance, the Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers, Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, FDR. JFK, MLK, and RFK... are ALL DEAD.

Newsflash: Nobody gets to own them... They now belong to history.

And asking hypothetical questions is allowed.

[bravenak]

283. Umm hmmm. Like that matters when I am perfectly correct on all points.

Your being alive then makes me no nevermind. The facts are the facts.
Some people think the black liberation movement was about white people fighting the oligarchy and that racial justice was not the REAL fight. They are wrong and I am telling them how WRONG they are.

[Bobbie Jo]

294. KICK

Keep making them uncomfortable, bravenak.


Love ya!

[Martin Eden]

295. "bastardizing King's quotes"

Yeah, like substituting "progressive" for "moderate"

[bravenak]

302. More like pretending the fight against racism was secondary to FIGHTING THE OLIGARCHY!!!

[Martin Eden]

327. You should understand those struggles are not mutually exclusive.

And the title of the blog post you proudly repeated as the title of your other thread was a "bastardization" of a King quote.

[bravenak]

331. I understnd that. Do they understand that they are minimizing our struggle?

[Martin Eden]

349. "they"

"They" and "moderate" are not synonymous with "progressive."

[bravenak]

351. I have seen progressives do the minimizing way more often this year.

So has the author. That is why they likened them.

[Martin Eden]

355. You've certainly been arguing with progressives more, due to the Hillary vs Bernie primary fight

Had circumstances been different and you were arguing with Hillary supporters in this primary battle (as many were 8 years ago) your perception of who is "minimizing" would have been the moderates King actually cited in his speech.

When you get into arguments in an internet forum you're going to encounter a wide variety, including some who can get nasty and/or truly minimize the struggle. Individuals who get nasty are found across the spectrum and the further you move from left to right, the less they are your actual allies in the struggle against racism and against the oligarchy.

[bravenak]

357. This is all over the internet and in real life.

I watched Bernie talk about the Colored Sanitation Workers strike without ever mentioning that they were fighting for equal pay to whites. See? Not just here. I watch the candidates. Tell me he did not do that.

[Martin Eden]

374. No, I don't see how that can be construed as Bernie "minimizing"

the struggle against racism. It goes without saying that's what the strike was about. You are really fishing for reasons to confirm your bias against Bernie, and it's obviously due to arguments with his supporters. Did you ever consider that might have something to do with your own bias that's evident in your posts, including distorting King's own words to smear progressives?

Bernie Sanders is a much better ally than Hillary in this struggle because economic justice is inextricably linked.

[bravenak]

378. He did it with the nuclear waste thing too.

Ignored the concerns of the community and minimized it. There is a pattern.

[99Forever]

296. I'm "white."

I was alive when Dr King was. That's my demographic.

He certainly didn't make me "uncomfortable." In fact, I was like many "whites" at the time, we openly supported his struggle and marched beside him.

As I just did again with BLM just a couple of days ago marching from the 4th district to City Hall protesting the police murdering of Jamar Clark. I was quite comfortable.

But then, I'm not just some Intertubes Slacktavist spouting off bait on a website, I actually step up in Real Life.

[bravenak]

303. My very existance is a strike agains white supremacy. My kids struggle against racism in this fight

more in their few years than most white people will in their entire lives. No competition. Many give themselves much credit. I give most of the credit to the blacks who fought. It was way more dangerous for them, as evidenced by all of the lynchings. Hundreds of lynchings. Maybe thousands. While folks picnic'd beneath the bodies.

[99Forever]

312. Well aren't you special.

Bless your heart.

[bravenak]

314. I like to think so. It seems that way most times. Happy holiday.

[99Forever]

316. Of course you are.

Bless your heart.

[bravenak]

318. I already know that.

[99Forever]

320. I'm certain you do.

Bless your heart.

[bravenak]

322. Glad you know.

[99Forever]

323. I probably am more aware of your character than you might think.

Bless your heart.

[bravenak]

324. Probably not.

[aikoaiko]

297. Except MLK would not be telling liberals to STFU

[bravenak]

300. Yes he would, imo.

Especially when they mangle his quotes for their own purposes.

[SusanCalvin]

304. Exactly.

My God, I remember my friends and family demonizing MLK. If I listened without thinking to my father, I would have thought Medgar Evers deserved what he got. Don't ever tell me I can really understand. I just empathize.

[bravenak]

305. I can imagine.

Funny enough, my stepdad loved all black civil rights leaders in retrospect. Because he prefferred minority women, and could marry them. We watched the loving movie together and he cried. He said things went south after those RESPECTABLE men were killed. And now? Saggy jeans and rap music. He was too much.

[SusanCalvin]

306. Oh, is your stepdad still living?

I must admit to human assumption - my dad died in 1983, so of course yours did too.....

[bravenak]

308. Mine died in 96.

It was bad...

But my mom married his brother and it's almost the same exact person!!!

[SusanCalvin]

309. Woh. Veeeerrrrrry iiiiinteresting. nt

[bravenak]

311. Sure is!! I said so at the time...nt

[DemocraticWing]

298. The problem is too many white people think it was white people who gave you rights

There are lots of people who want black people to remember all the things white people did, like we have any grounds to talk anyway. It was no great sacrifice for us to start treating you like human beings, but to hear white people tell it, we had to "free ourselves" or some similar balderdash in which the Civil Rights movement was secretly all about white people discussing how to fix things.

Nobody wants to admit that black people, through great skill and effort, fought for 100 years for their own rights with varying amounts of solicited help from white people when needed.

If I have one thing to suggest to black people, it's to avoid buying into that crap when white people say it.

[bravenak]

301. Thank You!!!!

[SusanCalvin]

310. "The problem is too many white people think it was white people who gave you rights"

EXACTLY! And me too. No damn body "gave" me any damn rights. Maybe that's why I get so worked up.

[Autumn]

313. Seriously. Who thinks that white people gave black people rights?

I have never head anyone say that. Or even hint at it.

[bravenak]

317. I read all the time how much respect I need to give.

And since I honor the blacks who fought and died, and do not place the whites who helped on a pedastal, people get upset. I have no idea why they do not think the blacks who were in the most danger deserve the most credit. Hillary did it too. She credited LBJ more than MLK once, imo. Bernie discussed the garbage men's fight fo fair wages without even discussing the fact that it was black sanitation workers trying to get equal pay and treatment as white sanitation workers. Erasure. We notice it immediately. Do I think it was a deliberate strike against blacks? Nope! I think they were going for inclusive language, but did not realize we felt erased from our own history.

[Autumn]

319. Who believes or thinks that white people gave black people rights?

[bravenak]

321. Many. Too many to count.

They scream 'He fought for your RIGHTS!!' "He has done more for blacks than most people alive!!'
One told me, "He has done more for you than your mother!"
I even saw,"He was BLM before BLM!!"
That stuff? Makes people HATE him.

[Autumn]

326. Well like it or not many white people supported the fight for civil rights

and some got out there and stood with those fighting for it. That's the way it is and you don't get to say that they never did. But no one ever said that white people gave black people rights. Every white or black person who was alive at that time or who has studied any history at all knows that black people fought and died for their rights and there were white allies that stood with them in their fight and died with them.

[SusanCalvin]

332. Agreed. But I have noticed quite a bit of "you should."

Dunno about anybody else, but the word "should" tends to get my back up.

[Autumn]

334. Yeah, we all notice things don't we. nt

[SusanCalvin]

335. Not sure of meaning here.

Last edited Fri Nov 27, 2015, 12:17 AM - Edit history (1)

Not that I'm required to be. On surface, yes we do.

Late night grump - if this means you want to kick me out of the Bernie group, feel free. DU will not make any difference to his election, IMHO, and some of them are way too blindly rah-rah for me anyway.

I'm frankly tired of the useless bickering on all sides, and especially of Bernie central when it becomes, again IMHO, pointless or even counterproductive.

Quite possibly I am misreading your point. If so, apologies in advance. It's late, and I am getting off this device. In a rational world, I should go out and do something useful. Perhaps I will.

[Autumn]

345. This is GDP. Post to whomever you wish and post what you wish.

I have always trashed groups that were too rah-rah for my taste.

[SusanCalvin]

346. Ooooookaaaaaaay.

I will take this under advisement.

Fortunately for me (since I want Bernie elected), I flatter myself I can separate different spheres......

[Autumn]

350. I really wasn't advising you. I simply stated the obvious, this is GDP, not the Sanders group.

If you find the members of, or the Sanders group itself too "blindly rah-rah" for your taste no one will ever force you to post there. I myself find the posters in the group to be exuberant rather than "blindly rah-rah", they want Bernie elected also.

[SusanCalvin]

353. Well, I don't feel forced to post,

And I guess I'm not being kicked out, so it's all good. Good night.

[bravenak]

333. Nobody said they didn't do stuff. But it was never for or about them.

Do they understand that? Do they see themselves place themselves in a position of prominence? More of us fought, more of us DIED, and all of us struggled against the oppression that others did not experience. Why do they give themselves much and more of the credit for our 400 year struggle? I know why.

[Autumn]

336. i don't see anyone saying it was for or about them.

[bravenak]

337. They say his real fight was against the oligarchy.

Even in this very thread.

[SusanCalvin]

347. It was, to an extent, and I am grateful.

But it was also very specific, with good reason.

[bravenak]

348. If the oligarchy is called white supremacy, then yes.

He spent very few days ranting about Wall Street or breaking up the banks.

[SusanCalvin]

352. True.

There was a lot less of that, as I remember. Time was, your savings could keep up with inflation with that little blue bank book.

Well, the world is better in some ways and worse in others. Hope it's a net good.

https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

What I was looking for was:

There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people. Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.

I got threatened with being kicked off DU for quoting Heinlein, recently. Dunno if it was empty....

[bravenak]

354. Threatened with being kicked off? Was he a republican? Jesus.

That is simply ridiculous.

Good quote and true.

[SusanCalvin]

356. Don't remember. Empty, almost certainly.

I saw a Heinlein sig line recently. Made me happy.

BTW, by "specific" I meant PoC. I'm sure you knew that, just wanted to be clear for the general public.

Reading _Farmer in the Sky_. Nobody can read that and (truthfully) say Heinlein was a libertarian. Sexist, yes, but not in the context of his time.

[bravenak]

358. Yes, of course I knew you knew. It was for THEM.

Oh yes, sexist for sure. And strange. I need to read that one. I might look it up on amazon. Or find a pdf somewhere.

[SusanCalvin]

359. Sexist in today's world.

For his time he was quite enlightened, IMHO, in that respect.

He had some quirks, completely agree. Makes me cringe in a few places. But overall a good guy and a great storyteller, I think.

[bravenak]

360. True. Things were different. He actually depicted women with agency at times where others did not.

I like his books regardless.

[SusanCalvin]

340. Please see 338. nt

[Autumn]

342. So. White people say it was for or about them

because some white people had the ability to understand and share the feelings of other human beings and made the choice to support the fight for civil rights and by that they are saying that they gave blacks their rights. Alrighty then.
I will never agree that those white people who made the right choice to fight along side the blacks in the fight for civil rights for one second did it just to be able to say they gave blacks their rights or so that they could say it was about them. Have a nice one.

[SusanCalvin]

343. Please see 335. nt.

[SusanCalvin]

344. Of course that was not their reason.

But they did have a choice.

People who can be identified by sight do not have a choice.

[SusanCalvin]

338. It was for or about them to the extent that they had empathy.

But they also had a choice. People who could be identified by sight didn't.

[bravenak]

339. And many choose to do... Nothing. I thank those that fought at our side.

But to make the liberation of blacks about themselves is just wrong.

[SusanCalvin]

341. Exactly. nt

[SusanCalvin]

329. "We notice it immediately"

Exactly. And sometimes I do too. Sometimes even when it's not pointed out to me.

[bravenak]

330. I know you do. I wish more were like you.

[gollygee]

375. His message still makes white people uncomfortable

which is why we rewrite his history. To make ourselves more comfortable.

Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans. White America would have liked to believe that in the past ten years a mechanism had somehow been created that needed only orderly and smooth tending for the painless accomplishment of change. Yet this is precisely what has not been achieved. These are the deepest causes for contemporary abrasions between the races. Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro there is a credibility gap he cannot overlook. He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash.


". . . for two centuries the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages–potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation.”

First, I must confess that over the past 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 his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler 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 cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

[bravenak]

379. Exactly.

[Gothmog]

376. Great article in OP

Thank you for posting

[bravenak]

381. .

[Cha]

377. KICK.. still relevant.

Mahalo Brave~

[bravenak]

380. Thanks.

[Cha]

382. And, Mahalo to you~

brave~

[Kind of Blue]

383. Fantastic thread, Bravnak.

I found another and understand what you were talking about in the AA group.
K&R!