It’s Time To Appropriate And Distort My Legacy For Your Political Agenda

By the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Selma, January 21 – You don’t seem to need the encouragement, but now that my birthday has come around again, so has a boost in the apparent drive you have for taking my words and shoehorning them into your ideological box. Yay.

My entire ethos revolved around achieving equality for all Americans, regardless of ethnicity. The non-violent protest movement I had the privilege to lead resulted in a moral credibility that even today, more than forty years after I was murdered, people want to invoke. Even if my views on their pet issue prove the polar opposite of theirs. Such an honor.

Take “Palestine.” I made it plain on multiple occasions that hatred for Israel serves as a poor mask for hatred of Jews. But that doesn’t stop self-proclaimed human-rights activists or New York Times op-ed columnists from pretending I’d change my pro-Israel stance if only I knew the truth. I know the truth, folks, and the truth is that giving credence to unceasing slander of Israel as if it commits some unique evil and therefore deserves unique, existential opposition, stands against everything for which I fought and bled. I should not need to spell this out.

I had this dream once – you may have heard me describe it, or read a transcript of the description. You know, the one about wanting people to be judged not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character. To have it bandied about in support of identity politics or intersectionality constitutes a grievous insult, but another truth is that the people doing the bandying about don’t really care for truth, or my aims. They just want to score political or rhetorical points, and, well, citing Dr. King will give you quite the cudgel. So what if he wouldn’t agree with you or your goals? A mere technicality. The same attitude had anti-abolitionists quoting Scripture to defend the institution of slavery.

If you can’t make your case with reasoned arguments and have to resort to mangling my words and my legacy to convince people of the merits of your cause, perhaps you should reconsider the merits of your cause, or find someone who can make such reasoned arguments. Or just admit you can’t make a reasoned argument and prefer to resort to emotional manipulation. Whatever floats your bigoted boat. I have a dream you just leave me out of it.

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