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contemplatingoutlander · 2 years

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Contemplations on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 16, 2023

The coming Republican nightmare | Cartoon by Ann Telnaes

Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.

Sadly, what is currently happening the in U.S. isn't it.

Given the anti-CRT movement in red states, the rampant banning of books by Black and Brown authors across the U.S., the vitriol on the right regarding the BLM movement, the unrestrained right-wing zeal of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court who have been slowly dismantling the Voting Rights Act and who are now poised to ban affirmative action programs at universities, and the acceptance of blatant racist remarks by many of today's GOP politicians (most notably their leader Trump), Martin Luther King would probably think that what is currently happening in the U.S. is indeed a nightmare.

Finally, MLK would be livid if he knew that the GQP anti-CRT, covert white nationalist movement has been repeatedly misusing his "dream" quote:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” --Martin Luther King Jr.

According to Melinda Guerra this quote has been:

Used: to defend the incredibly patronizing and trivializing thought that claiming to be colorblind is something laudable, rather than a way of discounting the fact that people of color have the privilege of being because we have to deal with the fact that our non-whiteness dictates parts of our experiences in ways those who talk about being will never understand. Also used to defend the idea of America being post-race, which would be laughable if its very falseness lead to so many awful things. Also used to suggest King would be against affirmative action, as if he hadn't been part of a group of leaders proposing an affirmative-action-like employment program (See #5 below).

Guerra goes on to suggest that we

Remind people: 1. This speech actually consists of more than the 2-3 sentences that get quoted. (Seriously, remind them of that. I'm almost convinced people don't know that.) 2. It is foolish and trivializing to claim you don't see color or suggest America is post-race, and flat-out wrong to suggest King wouldn't support affirmative action programs. 3. The march at which he delivered this speech was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. As a result of that march, meetings with administration, and a ton of work done by other leaders in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights act of 1965 were passed, with provisions reflecting the demands of that march. But, contrary to popular opinion, that didn't lead King to suggest we’d “arrived” and the civil rights movement should pack up and go home [...] 4. King’s speaking and activism stretched from before this speech to after it. This speech–and even the passage of important (but baby step) laws like the aforementioned Civil Rights Act and Voting Act–was not some final “end” to all he’d said. It was but one speech (and the lines people love to claim were but a few lines) in a long legacy of things he said, and his lifetime should not be reduced to a few nonthreatening lines white people like to remember. 5. King and others actually proposed something that sounds an awful lot like the affirmative action programs people use this quote to suggest he was opposed to. He supported a “massive program of economic aid, financed by the Federal Government, to improve the lot of the nation’s 20,000,000 Negroes.” Answering an interviewer’s question about whether it was fair to request a “multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group,” King responded as follows:

“I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages—potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America’s wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of two centuries of unpaid wages plus accumulated interest. In any case, I do not intend that this program of economic aid should apply only to the Negro; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races.”*

I’m sure you’ll see plenty of your own memes misquoting King this year. If you have the emotional energy (and I do understand if you don’t), consider using some of the above responses (or researching your own) and responding, instead of just scrolling past them.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

_____________ * http://playboysfw.kinja.com/martin-luther-king-jr-part-2-of-a-candid-conversation-1502358645

#martin luther king jr day #mlk day #dream or nightmare #us racism #us politics #anti-crt movement #gop #republican house #melinda guerra #ann telnaes #the washington post #fourth & sycamore

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kutputli · 1 year

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The Kind White Moderate Racism of Ted Lasso

"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 can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a '"'more convenient season" - Martin Luther King Jr from 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' 16th April 1963

It is 60 years, to the day, almost, since MLK Jr wrote those words, at a time when Black people were being jailed and murdered, by a white supremacist state, accompanied by the mealy-mouthed hand-wringing of the white moderates.

In 2023, Black people are still being jailed and murdered, by a white supremacist state. (This is true for the US and the UK, as well as across the world. I write this from a brown post-colonial nation where also, anti-Blackness has proven repeatedly murderous.)

And the white moderates are still at it.

I could write an essay breaking down all the macro and micro racist moments in Ted Lasso, a show that exemplifies how kind moderate white men see themselves and the world - but I won't. (I'd rather be paid for the labour, if I have to rewatch actively triggering scenes to do it.)

Instead, I will ask the Ted Lasso fandom - does this show disgust you?

And if not, what will it take for a story told by white men to get you there?

Disgust can sit alongside critical appreciation for craft, and emotional affection for characters you have invested in. Anyone who has interacted with white art and culture has learned the ability to weave their love for it alongside the weft of contempt we must cultivate for its racism.

I am not asking if you have stopped loving the show, or its characters. I am asking if you have felt disgusted - truly, viscerally disgusted - by its politics.

Because if you have not - if a bunch of white men turning a Black man into a puppet to preach forgiveness to a Black man who has experienced racist violence - if that does not disgust you...

then you are aligned with white supremacy, no matter how much you may disclaim the crude, ugly right-wing manifestation of it.

Do you choose to forgive the racist show that you love?

Or do you choose to hold it accountable for its racism?

#ted lasso #racism #fandom racism #my meta #white moderates #sam obisanya #ola obisanya

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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 months

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Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Tesnim Zekeria:

Last month, Bernie Moreno won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Ohio. Moreno benefited from an early endorsement from Turning Point Action, the far-right activist group founded by Charlie Kirk. On May 10, 2023, Kirk posted on X that he was "proud to support Bernie," and Moreno had Turning Point Action's "full endorsement." In response, Moreno wrote that he was "honored to be endorsed by Charlie Kirk and Turning Point Action." Moreno said that "[f]ew have done more to fight back against the radical left than they have," and he looks "forward to working with them to defend for our America First conservative values in the US Senate."

In 2023, Kirk repeatedly featured Moreno as a guest on his popular podcast and consistently promoted Moreno's candidacy to his 2.9 million followers on X. At the end of 2023, Kirk donated the maximum legal amount of $5,000 to Moreno's campaign through the Turning Point PAC. At the same time, Kirk, known for his embrace of fringe views and conspiracy theories, launched a sustained attack on Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and legacy. At a December 2023 convention hosted by Turning Point USA, Kirk said that King "was awful" and "not a good person." Kirk's critique extended not just to King himself but to the civil rights movement itself. "We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s," Kirk declared, trashing the legislation that outlawed segregation in public places and many businesses.

In his convention speech, Kirk blasted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an effort to “re-found the county” and “get rid of the First Amendment.” He criticized courts for enforcing the law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. "Federal courts just yield to the Civil Rights Act as if it's the actual American Constitution," Kirk complained. A spokesperson for Turning Point USA, Andrew Kolvet, defended Kirk's attacks, saying respect for King's legacy was based on "fake history."

Kirk announced he was "gonna tell the truth about MLK Jr" on MLK Day in January 2024. According to Kirk, a podcast episode attacking King and the civil rights movement was being put together by his producer, Blake Neff. In 2020, Neff was forced to resign from Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News after it was revealed Neff was posting racist comments online under a pseudonym. The episode, titled “The Myth of MLK,” kicks off with Vince Everett Ellison – a right-wing activist who claims that voting for a Democrat will send you to Hell. Ellison describes King as “despicable,” “immoral,” and “perverted.” Kirk repeatedly suggests that King’s legacy has harmed “Black America.” He asks Ellison if the lives of Black Americans have improved “the more that we have worshipped MLK.” Kirk also invites Ellison to talk about how “MLK's narrative and political activism led to the modern welfare state.” Ellison responds by accusing the civil rights community of keeping Black people poor, adding that the devil “rest[s] his head at the DNC” and that the DNC “use[d] MLK and all of those perverts with him.”

“I could say declaratively this guy is not worthy of a national holiday. He is not worthy of god-like status. In fact, I think it's really harmful,” Kirk says after the conversation with Ellison ends. Then Kirk, alongside Neff, spends roughly 30 minutes attempting to demonize the Civil Rights Act. According to Neff, the Civil Rights Act is “directly against this colorblind world that conservatives think MLK brought.” Kirk tells listeners that “in reality the language and the application of the Civil Rights Act…is a color preference act, not a color blindness.” Kirk adds that the Civil Rights Act “is making it harder for us to pursue Excellence as a society” because, as Neff puts it, “you have to discriminate against men, against white people.” On X, Kirk wrote that the "deification of MLK and his proto-DEI ideology marks the exact moment that the progress of black America goes sideways." Kirk suggested that MLK was responsible for the "disintegration" of "their cities," the "collapse" of "their families." Because of MLK, Kirk claims, "they" are "enormously dependent on government support."

[...]

Moreno suggested white people should get reparations

Moreno himself has also had controversies involving racial issues. When he launched his campaign for Senate, Moreno floated the idea of reparations for white descendants of Union soldiers that were killed during the Civil War. “They talk about reparations. Where are the reparations for the people, for the North, who died to save the lives of Black people?” Moreno said. “I know it’s not politically correct to say that, but you know what, we’ve got to stop being politically correct.”

GOP #OHSen nominee Bernie Moreno’s campaign is being bankrolled in part by White Nationalist-friendly organization Turning Point USA’s political advocacy arm Turning Point Action led by Charlie Kirk.

#Turning Point USA #TPUSA #White Nationalism #Charlie Kirk #Bernie Moreno #2024 US Senate Elections #2024 Elections #2024 Ohio Elections #Blake Neff #Civil Rights Act of 1964 #Civil Rights Act #Martin Luther King Jr.#Reparations #Turning Point Action

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hometownrockstar · 5 months

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hi again, enjoy some trains, i'm sending you two youtube video titles lol "LTEX from the air 3 - 2021-2023 both locations" and "MLK Day Railfanning Raleigh, NC ft. a. Triple Train Meet, RJ Corman, & more!"

thank you i looooove train videos and today i got to go to a train watching platform and watch a train pass by and it was very big! thank you i wanna watch :-)

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 6 months

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By: Julian Adorney

Published: Mar 9, 2024

Many self-described “anti-racists” paint themselves as noble standard-bearers carrying on the legacy of the civil rights movement. Ibram X. Kendi, writing for The Atlantic, refers to “an anti-racist [Martin Luther] King [Jr.]” and says that attempts to dissociate King from contemporary anti-racists amounts to a “second assassination” of King–this time of his legacy rather than his body. In a post for Martin Luther King Day 2023, Penn Medicine’s CPUP Anti-Racism Committee portray themselves as carrying on King’s legacy. A CNN Explainer discussing Critical Race Theory suggested that, “the idea behind it [Critical Race Theory] goes back much further, to the work of civil rights activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer and Pauli Murray.”

There’s some substance to this assertion. In certain speeches and passages, MLK in particular can sound a lot like a modern-day “anti-racist.” As John Wood Jr. notes in Quillette, King endorsed something resembling the “implicit bias” discussed by writers such as Robin DiAngelo. He talked about systemic racism and the “white power structure.” In a passage in Stride Toward Freedom that parallels Kendi’s famous declaration that all gaps in achievement between racial groups are caused by racism, King writes that “They [segregationist commentators] are never honest enough to admit that the academic and cultural lags in the Negro community are themselves the result of segregation and discrimination.”

Furthermore, King strongly supported affirmative action in 1965 as a necessary corrective to centuries of segregation.

Of course, King was writing in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s an open question whether his analysis of black-white relations still holds 70 years later. Indeed, a frequent critique of modern-day “anti-racists” is that too many of them still pretend we’re stuck in the 1960s. If King were still alive, would he think and write differently about the “white power structure” than he did in 1963?

But a deeper rift exists between civil rights leaders like King and the ideals espoused by too many of today’s “anti-racists.” In at least three key areas, the ideals of many so-called “anti-racists” (who author Coleman Hughes perhaps more accurately refers to as “neo-racists” in his book The End of Race Politics) today are completely at odds with those of the civil rights movement.

Regarding racial integration, for instance, many “anti-racists” are pushing for a world that’s radically different from the visions of civil rights activists like King and Murray. At the heart of these men’s visions was racial integration. Murray, a queer black civil rights activist, proclaimed in 1945 that, “I intend to destroy segregation by positive and embracing methods.” “When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me,” he said, “I shall draw a larger circle to include them. When they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind.”

Speaking at the Youth March for Integrated Schools in 1959, King intoned, “As I stand here and look out upon the thousands of Negro faces, and the thousands of white faces, intermingled like the waters of a river, I see only one face—the face of the future.”

In contrast, some of the most prominent “anti-racist” voices actively promote a segregationist agenda. A Washington Post article asks, “Can black and white women be true friends?” The author, a black woman, answers that question in the negative. Why? “Generally speaking,” she writes, “it’s not that I dislike white women. Generally speaking, it’s that I do not trust them. Generally speaking, most black women don’t.” An article in Vice even cautions white people against entering into an interracial marriage. “If you’re trying to start a mixed raced family,” the author warns, you should “sit down and deeply interrogate your intentions.”

Why do leading “anti-racists” actively discourage racial integration, using rhetoric that eerily echoes the KKK rather than MLK? Some believe the perceptions of black and white people are so divergent that genuine interracial communication is nearly impossible. In her New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo describes the difference in perspective between white and black Americans as “not just a gap in experience and viewpoint,” but as “a chasm you could drop entire solar systems into.” Others seem to perceive members of different races as belonging to truly separate species. In their book Is Everyone Really Equal?, Robin DiAngelo and Özlem Sensoy argue that members of minority groups are characterized by the following traits: “feels inappropriate, awkward, doesn’t trust perception,” “find it difficult to speak up,” are “timid,” and “lack initiative.” By contrast, members of majority groups (e.g., white people) are characterized thusly: “presumptuous, does not listen, interrupts, raises voice, bullies, threatens violence, becomes violent.”

When these “anti-racists” caution against racial intermingling on the grounds that white people and black people are fundamentally different and/or cannot understand each others’ perspective, they can no longer claim to be champions of the vision for civil rights shared by leaders like King and Murray.

The second big area of difference between many modern-day “anti-racists” and the civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s is that the foundational ideal of the latter was brotherly love. King emphasized to his followers that, “Love must be our regulating ideal.” While leading the Montgomery bus boycotts, he urged every speaker and minister within the movement to hew close to this ideal. In his book, Stride Toward Freedom, King recounts an instance when one minister “lash[ed] out against the whites in distinctly untheological terms” and referred to extreme members of the white community as “dirty crackers.” King reports that the offending minister “was politely but firmly informed that his insulting phrases were out of place.”

Why was King so determined that the civil rights movement avoid descending into hatred and bitterness towards their oppressors? One reason was his strong Christian ideals. He quoted Jesus to his followers: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” But King also understood tribal psychology and knew that lasting change could not be achieved through mutual hatred. In Stride Toward Freedom, he noted that, “To meet hate with retaliatory hate would do nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe.” “Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man,” he continued, “but to win his friendship and understanding.”

But retaliatory hate is the modus operandi of too many “anti-racists” today. Saira Rao and Regina Jackson dedicate their New York Times bestseller White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism And How to Do Better to “all Black, Indigenous, brown, and non-white girls, women, and non-binary identifying folks who are sick and tired of white women’s bullshit.” Authors like DiAngelo and Sensoy are comfortable dismissing all white people as “bullies” who “threaten violence” and “becomes [sic] violent.” In 2021, Yale University’s Child Study Center hosted a psychiatrist who delivered a lecture titled, “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” where white people were likened to “a demented violent predator who thinks they are a saint or a superhero,” and the speaker openly fantasized about murdering white people.

In 2023, professors Michael Bernstein and April Bleske-Rechek published the results of a study wherein participants were shown three quotes from Hitler about Jews, but replaced the term “Jews” with “Whites.” Participants were then asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statements. The quotes are as follows:

“...the language of the [White] people, who speak to conceal, or at least veil, their thoughts. Their real purpose is often not in the writing itself, but sleeping snugly between the lines.”

“For reasons which will immediately be apparent, [Whites] have never possessed a culture of their own and the basis for their knowledge has always been furnished by the civilizations of others.”

“To achieve their goal, [Whites] proceed as follows: they creep up on the workers in order to win their confidence, pretending to have compassion.”

Fully 50 percent of liberals sampled agreed with at least one of the three statements.

King cautioned against “retaliatory hate,” understanding that bitterness and rage would not undo the sins of oppression. More fundamentally, he embraced the foundational Christian belief that all humans are made in the image of God, and thus have equal and intrinsic value. The prevailing message of too many on the far-left is the opposite: retaliatory hatred is to be lauded, because some races are just better than others.

The third foundational area where many self-proclaimed “anti-racists” diverge from the civil rights movement's ideals is their approach to class. In Stride Toward Freedom, King describes the mass meetings of the Montgomery bus boycott like this:

The mass meetings also cut across class lines. The vast majority present were working people; yet there was always an appreciable number of professionals in the audience. Physicians, teachers, and lawyers sat or stood beside domestic workers and unskilled laborers. The PhDs and the no "Ds" were bound together in a common venture. The so-called "big Negroes" who owned cars and had never ridden the buses came to know the maids and the laborers who rode the buses every day. Men and women who had been separated from each other by false standards of class were now singing and praying together in a common struggle for freedom and human dignity.

In contrast, the “anti-racist” movement in recent years has largely catered to and been driven by elites. For instance, a 2023 New York Times article titled “The Failure of Progressive Movements” explored why movements like Black Lives Matter have struggled to enact real change. One explanation was that, as liberal writer Fredrik DeBoer says, “today, left-activist spaces are dominated by the college-educated, many of whom grew up in affluence and have never worked a day at a physically or emotionally demanding job.” As a result, progressive movements often prioritize “the immaterial and symbolic” over “the material and the concrete.” They obsess over pronoun usage, microaggressions directed at minorities at top universities, and whether Tracy Chapman was as successful as Luke Combs. Think what you will about all that, but this obsession with elite life is a far cry from “Workers of the world, unite.” Maybe that’s why a recent Gallup poll found Democrats bleeding support from people who never went to college, but retaining strong support among those with a postgraduate degree.

Of course, not all “anti-racists” think this way. I know and admire many on the far-left who courageously advocate for integration and a society where skin color impacts life outcomes as little as hair color. But too many “anti-racists” endorse a broken ideology at odds with the foundational ideals of the civil rights movement. This ideology–endorsed by editors at top publications, by Ivy League universities, by New York Times bestselling authors–signifies a rot that needs to be exposed and then expunged.

King dreamed of a future characterized by racial integration and brotherly love, where no person is valued more or less highly due to the color of their skin. We should recommit ourselves to that vision before it’s too late.

About the Author

Julian Adorney is the founder of Heal the West, a Substack movement dedicated to preserving and protecting Western civilization. You can find him on X at @Julian_Liberty

#Julian Adorney #civil rights movement #civil rights #antiracism #neoracism #antiracism as religion #segregation #integration #Martin Luther King Jr #MLK Jr #MLK #woke racism #woke #wokeness #cult of woke #wokeism #wokeness as religion #religion is a mental illness

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