I Have a Dream Republicans Stop Using MLK As a Cover for Their Racism
On the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth, I have a dream that one day GOP leaders and Democratic “moderates” will learn to stop using him as a mascot to launder their steadfast commitment to minority white rule.
Every year on this day, it seems the worst people, without shame or self-reflection, attempt to honor the memory of a civil rights leader who was assassinated by a white supremacist by tweeting the one and only line they care to remember from MLK’s famous I Have A Dream Speech: “We must judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”
You will never hear them mention MLK’s lacerating and furious critiques of white supremacy, economic exploitation, police brutality, the military-industrial complex, or systemic racism, which creates unjust and unfair double standards for people of color. They like their MLK sanitized, neutered, color-blind, and inanimate — preferably on a stamp or a poster. Also, they really like the fact that he’s dead. It makes him very non-threatening. He can’t trigger the nation’s collective “economic anxiety” by doing something reckless and dangerous, like peacefully taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
