[A thread about MLK and #CRT]

Nothing irks me more than when these folks use #MartinLutherKing to push back against anti-racism efforts.

The point they *think* they are making is that all King wanted was for America to be colorblind, encompassed by his desire to...

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...not be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

And so an intellectual effort focused on race - understanding the dynamics of #whiteness, documenting the effects of racist policies, urging people to be antiracist - is somehow "racist".

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But as King moved on from the 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech and continued his work, he realized that it was not just enough to give Black folk equal rights.

"Genuine equality" as he put it, requires changes in public policy and redistribution of material resources.

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...in his final interview, after talking about the success of the non-violent movement in the South, he then shifts to talking about his Northern efforts and the drive for "genuine equality".

Like CRTers and #antiracists today, he saw...

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(1) Inequality is grounded in social patterns and policy, not individual Bull Conners

(2) White folks who claim they do not see race, act racially when it matters. Northerners who supported the movement when it was in the South, quickly rejected King when he moved North

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(3) King realized that racism runs deep in American society, just as CRTers argue racism is endemic to America

(4) There are white allies but *most* Whites were not anti-racists, committed to supporting policies that created equal conditions between them and black people

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(5) The majority of whites are looking for an excuse to reject anti-racist policies (these would be your folks who think the problems lie in black culture).

(6) There is a unique strain of anti-blackness in the US, making comparisons...

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...to other groups impossible. King, like @nhannahjones
and others, grounds this anti-blackness in slavery, saying it still impacts us today.

(7) Like @DrIbram and others, he points to policies creating racial inequality. For example, white immigrants were given...

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...free and in the West [Homestead Act] while black Americans after Emancipation were given nothing.

All this can be seen in the first 20 minutes of King's last recorded interview.

So, when someone tries to co-opt King to rebut anti-racist and #CRT efforts, show them...

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this thread, or this video.

My sense is that King would have been a very effective anti-racist in 2020, and would have supported much of the claims made by #CRT scholars.



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