Running racism in America thread

Oh, c'mon, Ragu. What is the single most quoted piece of MLK's rhetoric, hands down?

"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."

There are all sorts of white assholes that will quote that, especially around MLK Day, and then say how happy they are that the U.S. has achieved racial equality, and that's complete bullshit.


I live in a state where MLK shares that holiday with Robert E. Lee Day. I know better.


"There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.

We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

In a time where the Republican Party is systematically working to deprive people who vote against them of their votes, when they are making a concerted effort to take control of the election boards and State Attorney General's offices in order to throw out legitimate votes and make it more difficult for black, brown, and young people to vote, these words are as applicable as ever - and you get damn few white Republican pols quoting them.

 

And you're playing word games. The United States has become markedly more openly and publicly racist over the last few years.

 

Plenty of the redneck folks I went to high school with are quick to post an MLK quote, maybe to counter-balance the other 364 days when they're asking about why they can't use the N-word when rappers use it. This will shock you, but they also loved to post Bill Cosby quotes about parenting and the importance of family structures, until he had his legal difficulties.

 

Florida could shield whites from 'discomfort' of racist past | AP News

 

Far Right Said Fred

 

More like Wrong Said Fred, amiright??

 

Such easily triggered trailer trash. No wonder they eat fentanyl like Cap’n Crunch. Weak

 

The other side of it is that I'm on Twitter enough to know that there are some very sensitive and easily offended people out there. You know of this person, and I am unfamiliar with her. All I know was the tweet I posted, where she was basically saying that she knew that whatever she said someone was going to jump down her throat, so she used King's words in order to have that to sandbag them with if it happened.

MLK lived a very different life in a very different time. His standards, expectations, goals, and his daily reality would all be completely foreign to anything in my experience. If some of his words strike me wrong, I don't know what might have happened to cause him to write them. I don't deify him, but I have tremendous respect for his bravery and leadership when he knew that he could be jailed or killed any day he woke up for what he was doing. If he wrote things that were radical or seem to be to you today, part of that was the time, and part of it was perhaps saying some unpalatable things harshly. Being non-violent does not mean that you always have to be polite.

All that said, there are many things he said that still ring true, that are as true today as they were when he wrote them. Trump gave racists license to say things that they would have been ostracized from polite society for before he trampled all over the standards. I look around and the overtly racist, wannabe fascism, authoritarian know-nothings are far more numerous and visible than at any time in my life. It makes me sick.