Martin Luther King Jr. is a symbol of the power of nonviolent protest in fighting forms of oppression. His mainstream legacy is as the representation of the nonviolent Civil Rights movement, and is credited by most for utilizing his nonviolent ways to end the regime of Jim Crow and ushering in a new age of equality and reform. It’s a story tale every elementary schooler learns about and regurgitates every January 20th. MLK is a symbol, an icon, but in the modern day that’s all he remains. Any political depth residing in MLK’s memory has been enveloped by the image of MLK. The killing force that put Che Guevarra on a T-shirt has put Martin Luther King Jr. on a boulevard, movie, poster, and much more.
Furthermore, his legacy is not just resigned to imagery, it’s resigned to a type of cleansing. King became a squeaky clean, shiny example of America, all his traits of deviancy scrubbed out. America and King go hand-in-hand. The modern narrative goes something like this: America used to be bad, but Martin Luther King Jr. and his friends talked to it and now it’s good, and now Martin Luther King Jr. stands for a part of American history as a beacon of hope or something along those lines.
This type of erasure ignores one of King’s most prevailing ideas: the relevance of economics. King reached across lines of race to instead establish solidarity along lines of class, this being exemplified through his alliances with other minority leaders, from poor whites to striking farmworkers. Issues of class were constantly intertwined in his movements for social justice, with him once saying in a New York Times Interview “In a sense, you could say we are engaged in the class struggle.” MLK even once proposed a step towards democratic socialism in America and referred to himself in a letter as more socialist than capitalist.
But this form of Civil Rights Censorship changes another part of the MLK equation. They disassociate the America of the past that King fought so hard against with the America of the present. By forming an archaic historical enemy against social justice, the spooky J. Edgar Hoover and his oppressive FBI, we are ignoring the fact that the regime of the past and the government of the present are one and the same The current narrative of MLK tends to dress up the FBI of the Civil Rights Era. Add a bit of immorality, with some themes of totalitarianism, and we get what at first seems like a completely different administration. We need to recognize that the 1960’s government we see as so evil is the same government we have right now, but with minor changes.
But why is King put through so much processing? Why is it so necessary for America to polish him up, instead of someone like Malcolm X or Huey Newton? Hell, America still looks down on Huey Newton and Malcolm X. They either see them as dangerous radicals or as people to be pitied because their circumstances led to them using violent means. But why is it so important that MLK is preserved and refined?
Well, to put simply, King was simply the most cooperative, most nonviolent, most effective out of the Black Civil Rights activists of the day. King’s means are tame, compared to the Afro-American gun clubs that Malcolm X proposed, or the armed Black Panthers that Huey Newton instituted. King definitely had an impact, that’s undeniable, but he fails to shake up the status quo in a dangerous way like the other black Civil Rights leaders do. And like genetic scientists, the media turned up King’s nonviolence factor, so people will comply with pepper spray to the face, turned down his socialist leanings, because you can’t have a socialist American hero, and disassociated themselves from the enemy. Oh, we aren’t the enemy, silly old J. Edgar Hoover was, but it's a good thing he isn’t around anymore.
With this the media has successfully created turned what used to be a man into a mere image for their manipulation. James Earl Ray may have shot King on that fateful Spring day, but it is us who have shined and glossed his taxidermied corpse, dipped him into a concoction of cleaning chemicals, and packed his body full of fluff and stuffing. The King is dead, his legacy is desecrated and his face is pale and waxy, covered in white shoepolish like some kind of perverse reverse minstrel show.
Furthermore, his legacy is not just resigned to imagery, it’s resigned to a type of cleansing. King became a squeaky clean, shiny example of America, all his traits of deviancy scrubbed out. America and King go hand-in-hand. The modern narrative goes something like this: America used to be bad, but Martin Luther King Jr. and his friends talked to it and now it’s good, and now Martin Luther King Jr. stands for a part of American history as a beacon of hope or something along those lines.
This type of erasure ignores one of King’s most prevailing ideas: the relevance of economics. King reached across lines of race to instead establish solidarity along lines of class, this being exemplified through his alliances with other minority leaders, from poor whites to striking farmworkers. Issues of class were constantly intertwined in his movements for social justice, with him once saying in a New York Times Interview “In a sense, you could say we are engaged in the class struggle.” MLK even once proposed a step towards democratic socialism in America and referred to himself in a letter as more socialist than capitalist.
But this form of Civil Rights Censorship changes another part of the MLK equation. They disassociate the America of the past that King fought so hard against with the America of the present. By forming an archaic historical enemy against social justice, the spooky J. Edgar Hoover and his oppressive FBI, we are ignoring the fact that the regime of the past and the government of the present are one and the same The current narrative of MLK tends to dress up the FBI of the Civil Rights Era. Add a bit of immorality, with some themes of totalitarianism, and we get what at first seems like a completely different administration. We need to recognize that the 1960’s government we see as so evil is the same government we have right now, but with minor changes.
But why is King put through so much processing? Why is it so necessary for America to polish him up, instead of someone like Malcolm X or Huey Newton? Hell, America still looks down on Huey Newton and Malcolm X. They either see them as dangerous radicals or as people to be pitied because their circumstances led to them using violent means. But why is it so important that MLK is preserved and refined?
Well, to put simply, King was simply the most cooperative, most nonviolent, most effective out of the Black Civil Rights activists of the day. King’s means are tame, compared to the Afro-American gun clubs that Malcolm X proposed, or the armed Black Panthers that Huey Newton instituted. King definitely had an impact, that’s undeniable, but he fails to shake up the status quo in a dangerous way like the other black Civil Rights leaders do. And like genetic scientists, the media turned up King’s nonviolence factor, so people will comply with pepper spray to the face, turned down his socialist leanings, because you can’t have a socialist American hero, and disassociated themselves from the enemy. Oh, we aren’t the enemy, silly old J. Edgar Hoover was, but it's a good thing he isn’t around anymore.
With this the media has successfully created turned what used to be a man into a mere image for their manipulation. James Earl Ray may have shot King on that fateful Spring day, but it is us who have shined and glossed his taxidermied corpse, dipped him into a concoction of cleaning chemicals, and packed his body full of fluff and stuffing. The King is dead, his legacy is desecrated and his face is pale and waxy, covered in white shoepolish like some kind of perverse reverse minstrel show.