This is an intentional insult towards a man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting non-violence protesting, and a sharp reminder that Reverend King was gunned down because of his civil rights and anti-poverty campaigns. Yes, for a time King owned guns during the early days of the Civil Rights efforts - when his house was attacked and threats on Black lives very real - but by the 1960s he gave them up because they conflicted with his message of nonviolent protest and a realization that justice should not have to rely on violence.
But tell that to to mostly White and mostly racist Second Amendment Cosplayers taking over the streets of Richmond today.
The turnout is expected to be just the goddamn gun worshipers: the Far Left and the Gun Reform groups had declined to counter-protest to avoid triggering any violence in the streets... which is something the Far Right Gun Violence groups are eager to provide today.
This is sad. We should be focusing on what Martin Luther King Jr would be focusing on: affordable housing, better jobs, safer streets and not just for Blacks or minorities but for all the poor.
So what would Martin Luther King say about all this? From the "Drum Major" speech in 1968:
...And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention. Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don't feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.
And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up...
We are watching tiny souls give themselves over to the worship of a weapon, a machinery of death, on the one day we should be respecting life and peace. All so they can push themselves up at the expense of instilling fear in everybody else.
On a day where we shouldn't have weapons.
Happy birthday to Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. We should be honoring you better.
1 comment:
He deserves better from us, so in the face of all of this we can't stop trying to make things right. We can at least do that much.
-Doug in Oakland
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