Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Would’ve Been (Non-Violently) Kicking Right Wing Ass

Dana Hunter, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, we saw that Martin Luther King would’ve definitely been part of the resistance to Trump’s regime. Today, we’re going to see he would’ve also been one of those politically correct social justice warriors. He would’ve been marching for a guaranteed minimum income, higher minimum wage, and affirmative action. He would have been demanding universal healthcare and championing Obamacare in the meantime. He would have been defending Planned Parenthood to the hilt, probably even doing clinic escorting when he could. He would have been standing up to protect public schools from people like Betsy DeVos. And he definitely wasn’t at all here for your libertarian free market at all costs bullshit.

How do we know? Because he had very definite opinions on those subjects. Look:

On Following the Law

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”

Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

Black and white image of Martin Luther King Jr., showing only his face. He is speaking, facing left. Caption says, "It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced."

Healthcare

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.

Speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights – Chicago, March 25, 1966

Economic Justice Continue reading “Martin Luther King Would’ve Been (Non-Violently) Kicking Right Wing Ass” →

Martin Luther King Would’ve Been (Non-Violently) Kicking Right Wing Ass
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Martin Luther King Would’ve Been Resisting the Shit Out of the New Regime

Dana Hunter, , ,

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the day on which far too many people vigorously whitewash a great social justice warrior’s legacy. See, we all know he was a good man, even a great man. We all know that opposing him shows you’re a disgusting, bigoted asshole. But he’s no good for the status quo warriors unless he’s been cherry-picked to oblivion.

They try to pull his fangs, folks, and then they demand we be more like their false idol of him. Fuck that.

Firstly, read the entirety of his Letter from a Birmingham Jail to see how he dealt with the don’t-let’s-rock-the-boat allies and the status quo warriors. If you don’t think he’d have been out there blocking freeways with Black Lives Matter activists and making the comfortable very uncomfortable indeed, you haven’t heard a word this man has actually said.

Secondly, here’s a selection of quotes that should leave you in no doubt that non-violent didn’t mean non-confrontational. His insistence on love didn’t mean asking the oppressors quietly and respectfully to please if it isn’t too much trouble to maybe consider stop oppressing people. He was out there making the comfortable damned uncomfortable. He was there to confront, not conciliate. He demanded justice. And he kept demanding, even though many people wanted him to just STFU. Listen: Continue reading “Martin Luther King Would’ve Been Resisting the Shit Out of the New Regime” →

Martin Luther King Would’ve Been Resisting the Shit Out of the New Regime

Post-MLK Day Reminder: The Good Rev. Dr. Would Be Pissing People Off

Dana Hunter, , 9 Comments

There’s some stuff the status-quo folks don’t like you to know about Martin Luther King Jr. I surely didn’t get taught anything about his anti-war stance, or his arguments against capitalism, or even the stuff he said about civil rights that Regan Republican conservative white people such as my parents didn’t want to acknowledge. My school, although located in a liberal college town, was a product of the Arizona state conservatism. I got a sanitized MLK, a black dude that racist-but-didn’t-want-to-admit-it people felt good about supporting, because damn, didn’t that mean they were enlightened and shit? They’re totally behind civil rights, yo. Just, y’know, not for affirmative action and dismantling the entire system of white supremacy. Let’s don’t go too far here. Be moderate, like Dr. King! And don’t you dare support affirmative action, cuz Dr. King said we were supposed to be judging character, not skin!

He’s the lullaby the status-quo folks use to try to sing us back to sleep. And they can get away with it only because he was killed for being far too revolutionary.

So yesterday, I’m sure there were plenty of people appropriating his dream to make themselves feel all good about themselves, and convince themselves that black people these days would be scolded by the Great Man, and all that usual shit. But I went out and collected the articles that prove their version of Dr. King is a lie. And now, we’re going to have a Day-After-MLK-Day in which we enjoy the fact that if we could bring him here in the TARDIS, he’d be more likely to roll up his sleeves and get to work with the Black Lives Matter folks than he would go on talk shows claiming that #AllLivesMatter.

Let’s hear it in his own words, then, shall we? Continue reading “Post-MLK Day Reminder: The Good Rev. Dr. Would Be Pissing People Off” →

Post-MLK Day Reminder: The Good Rev. Dr. Would Be Pissing People Off