In the Wake of MLK Day

Oh lawd, what is ah gon do? The massas bout tuh teach me how tuh protest tamarrah!

I think we all know MLK day haz a tendency to devolve into this uncomfortably tokenized ceremony dedicated to the supposedly docile side of the civil rights movement. My decidedly granola elementary school even had an assembly during which we all recited sections of his "I Had a Dream Speech." We learned about Black people who did not fight back while they were sprayed with fire hoses and beaten by the police. I was taught, at a very young age, that Dr. King advocated the ethics of passivity for Blacks, under which we should throw ourselves into the front lines of race-battles and wait for the White man to act. This was not, in fact, the case.

Worst. Assembly. Ever.

Teachingamericanhistory.org clarifies that Dr. King's nonviolent methods were meant to be spiritually aggressive, in that they evoked empathy—often entailed with horror—and made atrocities painfully obvious. I see it as having been about accountability. And prospect.org criticizes that we have perverted his vision and forgotten his radical ideas. Dr. King did not name legislation as the culprit—instead, he pointed out the often-de-facto institutions of "racism, materialism and militarism" as the enemy. He was not waiting for some desegregation law—he was an activist in his own right, fighting against all forms of injustice at their roots.

So, on Monday, let's not let MLK day become about pacifying the Blacks who would have otherwise joined the Nation of Islam or the Panthers. Let's make it about Dr. King's unique, non-passive message.

I, for one, plan to educate myself.

Forever correctable,

—AKB

***

UPDATE: I made a poor-quality, sarcastic video about it, too: