Martin Luther King Jr. day is more than simply praising his I Have A Dream Speech and white people posting his peaceful quotes on their instagram stories to prove that they aren’t racists. Rather, it’s a day to remember and celebrate him in the context of Black resistance to white supremacy, capitalism, and US imperialism.
Martin Luther King Jr, influenced by Gandhi in his peaceful approaches and powerful words, is most known for his famous I Have A Dream Speech which is taught in classes today across the very country that considered him an enemy to the state during his time (ironically). But he had so many more words than just those said in that speech. He had more radical, more anti-capitalist, more anti-American words that go unheard in the average American classroom. In the curriculum created by white people, Martin Luther King Jr. is painted as simply a Black man who wished for equality and used his voice to advocate for peace through nonviolence. But what is peace without justice? And what is peace without the dismantlement of the US regime which is rooted in white supremacy, capitalism, slavery, genocide, colonialism, and imperialism? And why is MLKs socialist identity left unsaid in the school curriculum? These questions are the answer to why we still don’t see peace in our communities.
No matter how much they pretend to idolize Martin Luther King Jr., the honest truth is that the system doesn’t want our children to learn from him because if it did, his speeches attacking the US government and capitalism wouldn’t be censored. They wouldn’t be forgotten in lesson plans, they wouldn’t be missing from inspirational posters hung on classroom walls if his legacy was actually trying to be honored. MLK is so much more than an advocate for peace, he was a revolutionary who has been minimized to a singular speech because of the perpetuating fear of the colored man revolting. This fear and racist lens is the same reason that other Black revolutionaries that had different approaches to their resistance like Malcom X are so easily left out of classrooms in the US.
The system wants the good colored person, the peaceful colored person, the calm colored person to be displayed as almost a figure to represent the “progressiveness” of the west. The colored person that doesn’t revolt against the system but one that lives perfectly within the performative walls of liberal media. Progressive enough that they would be a liberals favorite historical figure/celebrity but not enough that they would be classified as a socialist or even radical for that matter. Hence why Malala has become the princess of the west. A woman, oppressed by the brown muslim men of Afghanistan, has risen from the ashes to preach nonviolence. Yet, when it comes to a genocide of an entire people from a country so close to her own, she stayed silent for the longest time. Why? Oh because she is just a pawn of the west? I mean, through and through she always stood beside Hillary Clinton, the war-criminal liberal feminist.
When convenient, colored people are painted as people who need saving, or in need of a white savior. Simultaneously, we are villainized so that the horrific crimes inflicted by the west on our people and land are justified. It’s the reason the US is able to perform countless coups and genocides and get away with it. It’s the reason why police brutality and ICE kidnappings/killings are so prevalent in our country. They rightfully fear resistance in all its shapes and colors from speeches that influence by the millions to violence with physically threatening the oppressors. MLK’s select nonviolent quotes are so widely spoken to divert attention from the west’ regression and necessity for systematic change. Its a distraction from the ongoing war against colored people and the working class in the United States. Its a pretty picture for young children to look at and believe they live in an equal society. Its a way to romanticize the freedom struggle of African Americans and somehow give the credit to the United States as a whole to claim itself to be the land of the free.
The African American freedom struggle, the struggle for female liberation, the class struggle that lead to countless reforms do not belong to the United States, it belongs to oppressed peoples of this country. The people who fought against the US and its existence in its entirety. The United State’ creation and legacy will forever be known for being built on the bloodshed from the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans and being built upon the backs of African slaves who were ripped from their homes, cultures, and people. So no, the US cannot now accept and embrace MLK when during his life he was considered an enemy to the US. An enemy who was then murdered.
The west does not love Martin Luther King Jr., it likes the idea of him solely in the context of favoring nonviolence.
The Black communities of the US have been failed and beat down time and time again with severe underfunding in their neighborhoods, high levels of policing, and increasing white supremacy supported by our government and ignored by the “opposing” party. MLK’s fight against segregation was a fight against the entire system of the US because if oppressed people everywhere are not free, then we cannot be free. Freedom and peace requires systematic and collective change which includes the destruction of white supremacy, capitalism, genocide, and imperialism (among many others), all rooted in the creation and power of the United States. If the US cared so much about Martin Luther King Jr. as to hold him up to such a stature, his real legacy wouldn’t be censored and the Black people of America today would be living much better lives.