I
remember when Martin Luther King Day was first declared a Federal
holiday, how Arizona’s Governor Meecham repealed the previous governor’s
establishment of the holiday there, and how Jesse Helms led opposition
to it in Congress, on the grounds that King was unpatriotic, a Communist
sympathizer, and not “important” enough to be honored with a holiday.
We
all knew what they really meant, just as I knew what the childhood
friend who dismissed it as “a black holiday” was calling black people in
the privacy of his own mind. It was the 1980s, and it was pretty clear
that what people who had trouble with celebrating Martin Luther King Day
really had trouble with was racial justice.
Which is why it may seem odd that now, in the year 2016, I’m having some trouble with Martin Luther King Day myself.
One
of the more painful things I’ve observed, since I began speaking out
against racism, is the degree to which white people have taken a
sanitized, safe, domesticated version of Martin Luther King into our
hearts. I wish I had never seen this, but I’ve actually seen it more
times than I care to count: a black person speaks out against
present-day racism and violence, and a white person attempts to shame
him into silence by invoking Martin Luther King and what the white
person is pleased to call “non-violence.” What about riots? The white person asks. You’re so angry! The white person accuses. I can’t support Black Lives Matter, the white person complains. It doesn’t have the moral leadership of Martin Luther King.
Or–my (least) favorite: What would Martin Luther King think of what You People are doing? (To which the rational answer–which I have seen made–can only be, “We’ll never know; You People killed him.”)
Meme generated from public domain photo.And
the definition of non-violence gets extended, almost infinitely, to
mean no disrupting political rallies, no blocking traffic, no making
unpleasant scenes at the mall. “Non-violence” has become code for white
people refusing to listen to live black voices, in the name of a
distorted version of a man whose actual words we rarely bother to hear,
beyond a sound-bite or two from the “I have a Dream” speech.
Are
we “honoring” Dr. King? Or are pretending that his death marked the
end of racism in America? What are we really celebrating here–his
non-violence, or our hope to continue our lives without being
inconvenienced by protests, shamed by justifiable anger, or disturbing
life inside our comfortable white bubbles?Nonviolence–real
non-violence–can be assertive and disruptive as hell, something I
notice a large number of us white folks don’t want to acknowledge.
Likewise,
it seems as though it’s inconvenient for those of us living in
comfortable privilege to see that marginalization is violence… poverty
is violence… indifference to oppression is violence. In fact, there’s a
whole range of ways it is possible to be violent in our passivity. I hate to see us dumbing down what nonviolence really means, bowdlerizing the legacy of Dr. King, in the service of our immediate emotional comfort.
.
I’m
especially annoyed when those who don’t believe that non-violence
applies to any other conflict in the world believe that, uniquely, black
Americans should embrace non-violence. (Bombing the crap out of Middle
Eastern countries in the name of peace is just fine, though.)
.
And
also? to those who practice non-violence, but believe that disruption
of the daily routines of the privileged counts as violence? Yeah, I’m
pissed at you today, too.
Peacefully, non-violently pissed.
But I sure wish we wouldn’t make Martin Luther King into the patron
saint of tone-policing black activism. Because that… is completely
messed up.
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/quakerpagan/2016/01/why-im-uneasy-with-martin-luther-king-day.html#YlXafF1s0oLStfcA.99
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