THE REPUBLICAN-FASCIST use of Martin Luther King jr. has been aided and abetted by those who have kept his words behind a rigid pay-wall, something that I've criticized for a long time. In the absence of the real Reverend Martin Luther King jr. a white-supremacy friendly puppet using one and only one quote from his most over-played speech to bury what was a far more complete and complex and important figure. There are a few instances where that pay-wall doesn't extend, things that were published, to which his children do not own the rights to it being said such as the interview Alex Haley conducted which was published in Playboy Magazine, of all places. I assume that is why I found this refutation of the Republican-fascist, white-supremacist friendly puppet online:
Alex Haley: "Do you feel it's fair to request a multibillion-dollar program of preferential treatment for the Negro, or for any other minority group?"
Martin Luther King jr. : "I do indeed. Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved, and robbed of any wages--potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation. It is an economic fact that a program such as I propose would certainly cost far less than any computation of two centuries of unpaid wages plus accumulated interest. In any case, I do not intend that this program of economic aid should apply only to the Negro; it should benefit the disadvantaged of all races."
In the few minutes I have between power outages - we're having a winter storm right now - I see that part of the same interview he noted that Poor-Whites were in the same boat as Black People, which has always been true. The oligarchs and power elites have always used Black People and the racism promoted in the media and general culture to deprive both of their natural allies in seeking the common economic and social justice that all of them need.
I would say that another part of that was the myth that college was the answer to all that ailed both groups when it is and always will be the truth that most People won't go to college and get an education and that those who are deprived of not only a living wage BUT AN INCOME THAT WILL ALLOW THEM TO HAVE A DECENT LIFE have a right to them no matter what their work or lack of work is. The Reverend Martin Luther King jr.'s martyrdom came when he was working on behalf of economic justice for garbage collectors and other low-wage blue-collar workers. And it's clear from what he said during that last campaign of his life that he knew he was about to die. One of the greatest dangers to the white power elite is the fact that The Reverend Martin Luther King jr. died for the least among us, not the Hollywood picture of those who had been to college, were doctors and lawyers and had brilliant minds and characters not in need of redemption. I think those words in that speech were not some of his greatest but some of the most uncharacteristic and problematic. At best they don't move things on, at worst they are the tools of his enemies, something which might be better known if his words were not silenced now in a way that his enemies could only dream of, rarely carved in stone instead of engraved on the hearts and minds of living People to inform their deeds and beliefs.
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