The sweet comfort of four words: I Have A Dream

This is an open letter to the goodly gentleman (GG) who invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's name and his famed 'Dream' as GG sought to police Black voices raised in protest. This is also an open letter to those who joyfully claim the benefits of Dr. King's work but have never comprehended its true nature nor participated in the work involved in securing its benefits.

Dear Sir, 

You seem to be contending that every protester must be above reproach for the protest movement to be valid. This is an excellent way to invalidate the core premise of a movement without ever considering what it is that pushed people to action in the first place. It's also a little disingenuous don't you think? Is it your contention that the movement is without basis in fact? The 1,000+ persons shot dead by police in 2015 alone, without benefit of warrant, arrest, charge, trial or verdict might give the lie to any such notion.

You mentioned the story of Mike Brown as you denigrated the Black Lives Matter movement. Whether Mike Brown had his hands up is not really material is it? The point is that (1) Brown was shot dead in the street, without benefit of arrest, warrant, charge, trial or verdict; and (2) that's not how the law is supposed to work! What about Tamir Rice, shot dead a mere two seconds after the police rolled up to him? What about John Crawford III, shot dead while carrying an air rifle in the store where it was being sold, in an open carry state? When will it be the right time to demand different behavior from our police forces across the land? 

You also invoked the memory and work of Dr. King. Sigh. May I point out that the work of the Civil Rights era was to demand rights to which POC were entitled as citizens, but which were being casually withheld from them by the White, many of them professing Christian, majority? And yet you raise your Dr. King flag as if he were a point of pride for you. Don't tell anyone I said so, but he isn’t! He was, and remains, the proof of your endless shame. And every time people of color have to fight for something that should be theirs under natural law, the shame is refreshed. 

The Civil Rights movement, and the King whom we all revere, was not about gaining new rights for people of color, but rather about forcing the White majority to honor the natural rights of America's Black citizens. The Civil Rights movement forced the majority - of which you and your forebears are a part - to give people of color access to equal education; access to fair housing; access to labor unions' protections; access to the vote; freedom from domestic terror (aka Sunday after church lynching); access to the right to a fair trial; access to a jury of their peers - to include people of color (an idea only recently (May 2016) upheld by the SCOTUS). All of these rights were natural to the White majority but had to be fought for by people of color. King should not be a source of pride for White America but a source of everlasting humiliation and a challenge to do better next time. That a man had to spend his life fighting for the rights into which he was born? That such a man would be shot dead fighting for those rights? What exactly is it that you celebrate?  

White America gleefully waves its "Dr. King preached peaceful protest" flag, never mind it was toxic White supremacy that assassinated him. White America uses that flag to police today's protesters' behavior and demand their silence, but never seems to realize that Dr. King exposes rather than covers their perfidy. How do you not see the shame? King got nothing by asking for it nicely. Remember the shutting down of the Edmund Pettus Bridge? Remember the Montgomery Bus Boycott? Remember the sit-ins at lunch counters? Remember the billy clubs and the police dogs? You talk about Rev. King with great pride as if you sent him; as if it were not people like you against whom he was preaching and protesting.  You talk about his protests as if all he had to do was show up and all was right with the world. You talk about him as though people just like you did not meet him with demands for silence, just as you are demanding ours now.  King spent the last years of his life fighting tooth and nail with White supremacy and its commitment to deny him and his kin. He spent the last years of his life trying to embarrass politicians into living up to their much vaunted Bill of Rights. Rather than recognize how he chastened people just like you for their greater interest in peace than in justice, you talk about his 'I Have A Dream' speech and wallow in the sweet comfort of those four words. And even there, you get it wrong.

What was King's dream? Was it that his children would see all men as equals, or that yours would? Was it his dream that his children would learn to judge others by the content of their character or was it that yours would? As with the entirety of the Civil Rights era, this ain't about us, it's about you and once again, you have entirely missed the point. 

As Stokely Carmichael said, and as I quoted at length in White Privilege: a 5 point primer, “I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people" (emphasis mine). Likewise, the 'I Have A Dream' speech was written and delivered for White America not Black. We know ourselves to be equal. Do the police? The banks? The realtors? Yelp? Do you?

White America really ought to be ashamed to say MLK's name because in the face of the twenty-first century's new fight for Civil Rights - the right not to be executed on the street because the police are afraid of your skin - you are doing exactly as the majority did in the sixties: standing in your shoes and wondering; policing our tone and behavior as we demand the right to live. All the while, you're doing precisely nothing to help secure our lives. That being the case, your platitudinous invocations of Dr. King's legacy have no currency here, so just stop. 

I am about five minutes from saying y'all can't invoke Dr. King's name no mo' cuz you just don't get it.

You know what? Forget the five minutes. Consider the ban in full effect until White America is ready, willing and able to act in concert with people of color, and ensure the preservation of their lives and rights.