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White folks love Martin Luther King Jr. Or rather, they love the white washed version of him. His iconic I Have a Dream speech has a line that is a big favorite among white conservatives, a line that I'm sure you are all too familiar with, time and time again. I'm am of course referring to people being judged not by the color of their skin, but by the contents of their character. That line is often used by white conservatives to deny the systemic racism that has contaminated America from day one. It makes white people breathe a sigh of relief, keeps them from any type of self examination and lets them go back to their lovely white privileged world. That line is also often used out of context, which is exactly what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did in another GOP bash against Critical Race Theory.
McCarthy took to Twitter to reiterate part of an interview he did. On the social media platform he wrote "Critical Race Theory goes against everything Martin Luther King Jr. taught us-not to judge others by the color of their skin. The Left is trying to take America backwards." This was Kevin's weak attempt at using Dr. King's words to say that CRT is bad. I already mentioned that Kevin was wrong because he took Dr. King's words out of context but he's also wrong because CRT is not about judging people by the color of their skin, but that's another thinly veiled GOP attempt to vilify CRT.
Bernice King, the youngest of Dr. King's children was not pleased with Kevin's misuse of her father's words, tweeting back "I encourage you to study my father's teachings and words well beyond the last lines of 'I Have a Dream.' She even recommend her father's excellent book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
Ms. King wasn't the only one to tell Kevin that he really doesn't know anything about Dr. King's teachings. House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) clapped back at the GOP member with a quote from Dr. King that he and many of his fellow GOP members have probably never heard. "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 a sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn." Bra-VO, AOC! That quote is as relevant today as it was in 1967! Actually, a lot of Dr. King's words are still very relevant. More on that in a bit. And because no one can pass up an opportunity to roast a GOP member whenever they say something stupid, which is *looks at calendar* every freaking day, plenty of other people on Twitter gave him considerable blow back.
But Kevin wasn't the only conservative to put his lack of knowledge on Dr. King's teachings on display. Wannabe Fraud Fox News channel OAN had Kim Klacik on and although this is my first time ever seeing or hearing of this woman, I dislike her already. Klacik said that if Dr. King were alive today, he would be a hard right conservative.
Black people like Klacik are a special kind of infuriating. As a black person in America, she is not shielded from systemic racism but she will get on TV and use Dr. King's words out of context so white conservatives can feel better. She is either like Kevin and hasn't read much of Dr. King's work beyond I Have a Dream, or she's just being willfully ignorant, at this point, I'm not sure which it is.
MLK a hard right conservative? NO. Just NO.
See, white people are so stuck on white washed version of Dr. King, the one that sums up his whole career in that line they love from I Have a Dream, that they don't dive deeper into his works and much else of what he taught. That quote that AOC fired back at Kevin several paragraphs up, the one about whites being ignorant about race? King had many choice words about white people that would make their white fragility itch so out of control that they would go through several tubes of Gold Bond just to get relief.
Take a read at a few of those words.
"I am convinced the white people aren't going to move on if the Negroes don't. It is going to depend on whether we continue to move and if our method in moving will arouse the consciences of the white people" -Source-
"I have repeatedly warned my people that victory will not come if they wait for the white people to furnish the dinner while they merely furnish the appetite." -Source-
"White Americans must recognize that justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society" -Source-
"The concept of supremacy is so embedded in the white society that it will take many years for color to cease to be a judgmental factor." -Source-
"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." -Source-
Dr. King was all for nonviolent protests but he never pulled his punches in his words or his teachings. The man was a radical when he was alive. If he were still with us today, he would be a radical now. And right wing conservatives hate radicals. It's why they go with the white washed Dr. King. You won't see many, if any hard right conservatives dishing out those quotes because his words call out their bull. Dr. King was well aware that systemic racism and white supremacy were major issues in America and as such, he never minced his words putting white people on blast on a regular basis.
And white people were not fond of Dr. King when he was alive. Oh, sure he's a beloved figure now (the white washing probably helped) but during the Civil Rights movement? White people thought the movement hurt black people more than it helped. But black progress has always made white people uncomfortable. Heck, even the attempt for that progress makes white people uncomfortable.
Look, I was fed the white washed version of Martin Luther King Jr. as well. But I've since learned that there was far more to the man's teachings than that famous dream speech. In this day and age, there is no excuse for being so woefully uneducated on the teachings of Dr. King except willful ignorance.
So white and black conservatives, GOP members, until you get to know more than cherry picked pieces Dr. King's teachings, keep his words out of your mouths.
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