2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: If MLK Were Alive, He'd Make White Folks Just as Uncomfortable as Black Lives Matter [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He was killed by the government for challenging the whole order of society.
You keep acting as if saying that MLK was killed for any other reason than his opposition to racism somehow steals somethig from PoC or exalts white leftists. It does neither. It honors Dr. King and all those who stood with him, most of whom were PoC.
The fight against racism is linked to the fight against human exploitation. If we have learned anything in the years since 1968, it is that the capitalist system needs continued grassroots racism in order to survive. A society run on profit and greed cannot be a
society in which all are treated as equal human beings and equal respect. It needs racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, antisemitism, trans phobia and even "colorism" among communities of color in order to keep us all divided and living at its mercy.
And it needs institutional racism to reinforce the grassroots racism.
Under capitalism, hatred fuels the machine.