…I’ve always known we’ve done a poor job of teaching Black
history, but as of the last few days it’s so clear to me why history classrooms
reference Dr. Martin Luther King almost as if he’s the only significant civil
rights activist. It’s not because of his
effectiveness; truthfully speaking, if we wanna talk about effectiveness, we’d
do better to talk about the brilliant organizer A. Philip Randolph who, behind
the scenes, made that fateful marching day and so many others possible. Or, we’d talk more about Thurgood Marshall,
who won the cases and made the rulings that secured our futures on paper and
not just in romantic demonstrations.
Nope. We don’t teach
Dr. King because of his effectiveness; we teach Dr. King because it’s our way
of protecting the status quo. Our way of
reminding the actors in the civil rights stage play of their ‘proper roles’. “Okay, this is our routine, guys: we do the brutalizing, and you sit there and
take it and catch us on camera, then you give the powerful speech, and that’ll
bring the change.”
This is what folks have been trying to feed me for the last few days (like I’m not a history teacher, right). They were disturbed by the fact that I’ve been watching the Baltimore uprisings and saying, “…Well it’s about time. Long overdue.”
This is what folks have been trying to feed me for the last few days (like I’m not a history teacher, right). They were disturbed by the fact that I’ve been watching the Baltimore uprisings and saying, “…Well it’s about time. Long overdue.”
Am I an advocate of violence? Certainly not. Nevermind the Boston Tea Party, Storming of
the Bastille, American Revolution, Haitian Revolution, Zoot Suit Riots, Harlem
Riots --- fruitless endeavors, nothing good came from any of that stuff. But I will say, I get violently upset when people
take bits and pieces of Dr. King’s rhetoric and use them to barricade this
country from change, to deny the real problems by victim-blaming, or to mask their
support of oppression and those who enforce it…
I HAVE YET TO HEAR ONE
OF THE AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT’S ‘PREFERRED PEOPLE’ SAY, “HEY POLICE OFFICERS---
DR. KING WOULD NOT APPROVE OF YOUR USE OF VIOLENCE.” I HAVE YET TO HEAR ONE OF THE AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT’S ‘PREFERRED’ SAY, “IF YOU
ARE A POLICE OFFICER AND YOU HAVE NEEDLESSLY STRUCK DOWN AND KILLED AN UNARMED
MAN, YOU ARE A CRIMINAL AND A THUG, AND DR. KING FROWNS UPON YOU.”
Nope. People only
pull out the Dr. King rhetoric when it applies to the underclass, and it’s
clear to me today more than ever that that’s the point--- push Dr. King’s
rhetoric in schools to teach the underclass to be placid and pleasant in all their
responses; teach the underclass that peace and pleasantry is always worth it,
with or without progress. But even that
is a slap in the face to the man that was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; that’s MLK
abridged. MLK diluted. MLK-Lite.
I’ve had to remind
several “fans” of Dr. King who Dr. King really was--- a man who believed in
peace and condemned violence, but a man who said that violence is what you get
when you don’t listen to your impoverished, uneducated, destitute,
disenfranchised, defeated masses. He was
a man who believed in peace and condemned violence, but who would absolutely
break the law if he felt the law was unjust.
He was a man that counted on the violence of the Oppressor to be his
validation, capturing every brutal beating and every hosing and every dog bite
on film to bring America to justice.
…But this is what some idiots out there don’t
understand: the Oppressor has outlived
King. You see, the Oppressor is a living
being; it thinks, it adapts, it evolves.
Over time, while Dr. King has been resting and while a diluted version
of his rhetoric has been sedating generations of underprivileged youths in our
schools, the Oppressor has been recalibrating his offensive.
In 2015, the Oppressor can now choke Eric Garner to death on
camera as he huffs, “I can’t breathe” 11 times… and be acquitted; then attempt
to incarcerate Ramsey Orta for merely capturing the truth on film. In 2015, the Oppressor can kill an innocent
child named Aiyana Stanley-Jones in her sleep with a headshot, admit to
improper procedure in court, admit to invading the wrong house in court… and be
acquitted with impunity. The Oppressor
can seize a gravely injured Freddie Gray on camera, deny him the medical
treatment necessary to save his life, and be absolved of responsibility. All this to the backdrop of marches,
speeches, tears, songs, media coverage, and every other peaceful method you can
summon under the sun.
Ladies and gentlemen, THE OPPRESSOR HAS EVOLVED. And the Oppressor LOVES MLK. …MLK-Lite, that is.
The Dr. King who the Oppressor doesn't love is the Dr. King who said it’s time to end poverty in America;
the Dr. King who said let’s get to the ROOT of the problem instead of just dealing with the FRUIT of the problem. THAT Dr. King… the Oppressor put a
bullet in him…. as well as in JFK for being
his ally. And it’s funny because, in
2015, I think the Oppressor STILL wants to put a bullet in him. Judging
by the response I get as I pose these questions: "Why did you sit there and watch The Wire,
see the poverty, the desperation, the corruption, and say nothing, but wait
until the people of Baltimore had had enough to all-of-a-sudden summon your Dr.
King-isms? Why can you quote the ‘King
of Peace’, but not quote the ‘King of Economic Equality’ or the ‘King of Riot
Empathy’? Why did no one care about
Baltimore BEFORE it exploded?"
…Never quote Dr. King to a history teacher; it’s my job to
know the truth, not to fall for the twist. And the Dr. King these people are
summoning is as twisted as Freddie Gray’s spine.
Let’s talk further: for you to be summoning King-rhetoric, where
is this generation’s A. Philip Randolph to accompany it? Because without Randolph, The Great Organizer,
King’s rhetoric alone wouldn’t have gotten the job done. Where is this generation’s Supreme Court
Justice Thurgood Marshall? Because
without Marshall’s mastery of law, King’s rhetoric alone wouldn’t have gotten
the job done. Where is this generation’s
JFK? It’s certainly not Obama; Obama has
yet to call one killer cop a criminal
the way he’s referred to the rioters. Please,
for the love of God, we’ve got to stop openly blaming the victims while hesitating
to blame the bullies. Chastising the
Oppressed who retaliates, but pardoning the Oppressor who instigates. Taking Dr. King out of context, projecting
him to have been a one-man revolution who saved the world by just telling Black
people to chill. We are packaging and
shipping a warped and diluted version of King’s image in schools for teachers
to raise up seas of Stepin Fetchets who only know how to respond with footwork,
picket signs, and colorful speeches… for a few weeks… to no avail.
Thinking all violent courses of action to be inhuman--- though amusing
at hockey championships and college sporting events.
If we’re gonna preach and insist upon peace in the face of
violence, we should at least be able to
…You know what’s funny?
As much as this country swears by Dr. King and peaceful methods, when
given the choice between riots in Baltimore and a peaceful protest march 10,000
strong in that same Baltimore, the media chooses to emphasize the rioting. When given the choice between riots in
Baltimore and a coming together of Bloods, Crips, Pirus, GDs, and the Nation of
Islam to STOP the riots the media not only chooses the rioting, but lies and
says that they’re coming together not to stop looting, but to kill cops. And as I’m telling you this, none of these MLK-pacifiers---
not pacifists, pacifiers--- is going to go back and say, “SHAME ON THE MEDIA!” None
of them will say, “SHAME ON THE PEOPLE WHO
THREW OBJECTS AT AND SHOUTED RACIAL SLURS AT PEACEFUL PROTESTORS TO ANTAGONIZE
THEM!” None of them will say, “SHAME ON THE OFFICERS WHO MADE BALTIMORE’S CHILDREN
GET OFF SCHOOL BUSES AND LEFT THEM STRANDED AND LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES IN
THE MIDDLE OF A CRISIS!” But if they
were really about what Dr. King was
about, THAT would be their
focus. They would have spoken up looong before
the first fires of Baltimore broke. #HERELIESEDUCATION
Let’s chat it up:
earlgreysummers@gmail.com
@earlgreysummers on Twitter
/earl.g.summers
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