One of the things I've become increasingly conscious of in writing publicly is that efforts to confront bad ideas can easily drift into the arena of unintentionally setting unsuspecting people up for harassment. And since my intent is the former rather than the latter, I won't put on blast the rather harmless individual I saw express this far-too-commonly-believed idea, but rather just share the phrase that destructively spreads like wildfire on a day like this (MLK, Jr. Day):
If you said nothing about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Kalief Browder, Alton Sterling, Stephon Clark, Botham Jean, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Jordan Edwards, Elijah McClain, then you should say nothing about Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend. Listen and learn instead.
Sometimes it takes other forms like this:
No one tell Mr. Thomas what the Black Lives Matter movement (assuming that is who he is affirming here) has to say about Dr. King's work.
More to the point, to call all this exceptionally poor thinking would be an insult to exceptionally poor thinking. What's really being said in these kinds of posts and comments is quite simply, "If you don't agree with my set of political positions and social solutions on this issue, you are not allowed to voice an opinion."
Do people not realize how silly and presumptuous that kind of thing makes them sound?
Imagine setting similar rules for participation in public conversation.
- "If you've never spoken out about Polycarp of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Pope Fabian, or Ptolemaeus and Lucius, don't say anything about Jesus Christ this Easter."
- "If you've never tweeted anything about Wounded Knee, the Sand Creek Massacre, or the Trail of Tears, don't even think about going on a missions' trip to an Indian reservation."
- "If you haven't posted to Instagram anything about turtles choking on plastic bottles, polar bears drowning from melted glaciers, or snow leopards dying from climate change, we don't need to see your pictures of the dog you adopted from the pound this week."
Or maybe this gem from George Takei:
Just nonsense. It is the combination of hubris and haughtiness to hold yourself out as some kind of arbiter over who is allowed and who isn't allowed to speak about anything.
Of course I understand the issues at play in this particular case. The modern-day social justice movement has unfortunately and aggressively assumed ownership over the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is merely one of the manifestations of that illegitimate hijacking of his lifelong mission.
I don't mean that to suggest that King would not have had something to say about the unjust killing of black citizens by white police officers. I do mean to suggest that King's larger mission of collectively pursuing a colorblind society, one where citizens rested obediently under the moral authority of God, and writing, enforcing, and obeying civil laws accordingly, offered a far more comprehensive, far more effective, and far more productive approach to solving all those issues than what we're doing now.
And as much as I strive to avoid cynicism in my own heart, I'd be lying if I didn't admit there are times that I wonder if that is the very reason the woke Left is so adamant that the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Could it be that they aren't nearly as interested in solving the issues as they are in repurposing King and his movement to serve their own agenda, even as it treads perilously close to a perverse neo-racism that embodies the very ethnic hatred King fought so hard to defeat?
Given that possibility, please excuse me if I ignore the collective wisdom of the wokists who pretend to be the new generation of MLK Jr.'s movement.
- They are not.
- Regardless of your position on the individual cases mentioned in the original post (or others, as they often appear in eclectic groupings whenever this sentiment is expressed), you have every right to share thoughts about the life, leadership, and legacy of one of the more consequential figures in American history.
Now, do yourself a favor and go read King's greatest work: A Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
