Well, if you put it that way... Today America claims to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but this nation does not know what that means. King’s dream is often invoked but his social vision is largely neglected. Seldom if ever does one hear that he declared America to be “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” came to agree with Malcolm X that his dream may have given way to a “nightmare,” and planned to give a sermon called “Why America May Go To Hell” before he was gunned down in April of 1968. This is a man who wanted to move toward “democratic socialism,” sharply condemned America’s murderous war in Vietnam and its neo-colonial aspirations, and preached repeatedly that racism was intimately wed with capitalism, poverty, and war. These are not ancillary views one can disconnect from King’s character but rather central. They sprung from the same faith that produced his celebrated words on race – words we are yet to communally embrace, despite our verbal praise for the man who spoke them. Any remembrance of his life divorced from those views creates what Cornel West calls a “Santa Clausified” figure. America prefers King as a jolly old myth it can control and tell selective tales about, not the flesh and blood convict who took to the streets in pursuit of divine justice like an Old Testament prophet.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:18:11 +0000
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