Bernie Sanders could not, and will not be able to, get racist White Americans to stop voting against

[bravenak]

17. It's lame to jump straight to MLK when he was never the subject then accuse me of going

off topic. You made the comparison between them by juxtaposing something about Bernie, then straight to MLK like they are the same or even in the same league. I have something that will help you understand why it enrages us to have white liberals and progressives try to use MLK against us in ways meant to get us to see shit their way.

http://www.okayplayer.com/news/martin-luther-king-his-nightmare-their-dream-our-reality-opinion.html/2

In death, the white imagination found new use for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He became weaponized against more black radical resistance strategies to ensure obedience and disruption that could be controlled—even marketed for consumption. The idea of King is perpetually used to invoke ideas of non-violence, despite the fact that it was a bullet from a gun that went through his jaw, through his shoulder and his spinal cord that ended his life. By white liberals and people of all races complicit in white supremacy, he is consistently used to create order and peace despite writing this sentiment on the love of order in a letter from the Birmingham jail: “The Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than [to] justice”. Three days after his death Nina Simone sang that the King of Love is dead and riots broke out nationwide. During a 60 Minutes interview in 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. said to Mike Wallace, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

In 2016, an understandable rejection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exists amongst artists, organizers, thinkers and everyday folks alike who are interested in radical resistance practices because of this reimagining of who MLK was in the white imagination and how it has been used to silence and de-radicalize black movements. King will continue to be used to silence black people and other people of color and invoke ideas of interlocking arms of people that live underneath domination quietly, peacefully and most disturbingly, willingly.

The most disturbing part of this manipulation is that you can weaponize almost anyone against the very people they desired to liberate if you use their dreams and hopes of what they wish to be as laws, especially in death, when the details are those for domination to handle, not the actual dreamer of these dreams. Love is paramount and necessary. Love is important to express and articulate, and move towards. Peace is ideal. Peace is something to dream of, articulate, theorize and choose first. What domination will not express clearly is that black resistance did choose peace first and the choice dropped dead on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee decades ago. Domination will use those that dreamed of peace, but were still slain by white domination as a way to keep the marginalized suffering and domination perpetuating. It will dethrone a king and strip away all substance of what he stood for, and give him a holiday and a dream if it means keeping black people stuck between a cop and a hard, orange place.

If the progressive left ever wants to have a communion with black america, they need to drop the MLK shit and start coming up with their own ideas, and straight up? Stop telling us that you think his ideas are better for us. Just stop. Okay? We fucking know you think that but since we own ourselves maybe what we think is best for us matters more when discussing and crafting policy and looking for leadership. I know yall don't realize what you are doing when you do it, but when you finally do get how paternalistic you sound telling grown ups what you think is best for their entire race constantly, you'll feel strange about it and might just agonize over whether you have been treating intelligent adults like large children. I'm serious.

What if whites were a minority and blacks constantly told you that some old black guy was your champion and every time we brought him up it was connected to one of your entire race's civil rights legend and we used his words to try to persuade you even though you said 'please stop' like years ago? That our hero was not YOUR hero.