White Moderates are Still Distorting Dr. King’s Philosophy
By: Faith O. Potts
Tags: BlackLivesMatter, USA, Politics, Equality, Race

A couple of months ago, in response to the public outcry over the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an acquaintance of one of my family members claimed on Facebook that said family member was unduly taking offense and jumping to conclusions about Arbery’s death, writing “Martin Luther King was a man who did not take offense but spoke up in love and and made a difference. That’s why he is so endeared and respected today :).”

As I read this comment, I shuddered, recalling the numerous essays and speeches Dr. King wrote that clearly show he did not act just in “love,” but also in offense, anger, disgust, fear, indignation, and a plethora of other reasonable responses to racism. Contrary to popular belief, Dr. King also repeatedly expressed his belief in the power of protest. Recently, his daughter, Bernice A. King, said she believed her father would be extremely proud of the activists protesting the murder of George Floyd.

Anyone who supports the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is familiar with the frequency of alt-right white supremacy and neo-Nazism, along with the numerous irksome counter-slogans that have arisen in response to BLM— All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, even White Lives Matter — but perhaps the most dangerous threat to the BLM movement is the white moderate, who masquerades as a member of the movement, yet continues to harshly criticize protesters across the country, often showing bursts of misguided sympathy for police officers. This mindset frequently manifests in the form of the weaponization of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — a number of them post generic BLM images and vehemently insist they “aren’t racist,” while also claiming that, of course Black lives matter, but all those protesters need to be more peaceful, more respectful, more loving, more understanding, and, most importantly, less angry. Be more like Dr. King, they say.

The irony is that these critical and cautious white moderates who so readily reference King in their efforts to suppress or alter protesters’ behavior happen to be exactly what King repeatedly cautioned people of color and activists against throughout his lifetime. In his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King wrote extensively about the threat posed by the white moderate:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

Almost 60 years later, King’s description of the white moderate sounds all too familiar. The modern white moderate hides behind a guise of anti-racism, often appearing to be an ally in comparison to the many explicit and virulent racists, while still preaching the necessity of respect and order and peace, constantly suggesting that there is a better time, a safer place, a more effective way for justice to be served. In doing so, they stifle Black voices and hinder progress towards a truly anti-racist society, and it is difficult to call them out because, usually, they seem so well-intentioned. As King said, “lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

This is not the only way in which Dr. King’s activism has been weaponized to serve the interests of white supremacy. The work by King that is taught in schools is limited and selective, and “I Have a Dream” is the principal text for a reason — it can be easily manipulated to uphold a racist system that privileges whiteness through promoting a “colorblind” attitude that allows white people to exist comfortably without addressing racism. King says that he dreams of a world in which his children “will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This quote is frequently misinterpreted and cited in defense of the need to “not see color,” but what King genuinely meant was that he dreamt of a world without racism or racial bias, which absolutely cannot be achieved through advocating for “colorblindness.” When white moderates reference this quote to defend their “colorblind” attitude, they are really just manipulating a single quote from a person of color in order to evade responsibility for discussing the deep-rooted racism that defines America. Not only that, but claiming to “not see color” only puts people of color at a higher risk — they must constantly be aware of their race in order to navigate the world, and to deny their lived experiences is in itself a form of racism.

In a speech about the Black Power movement, Dr. King explained that love and power cannot be separated, nor can either of the two be separated from justice. He explained:

Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes. In this sense power is not only desirable but necessary in order to implement the demands of love and justice. One of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. …What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.

Dr. King (third from the right) at the 1964 March on Washington. Image Source: Getty

The white moderates who are so eager to reference King’s loving activism must understand that King knew love without power — which, to him, is the ability to achieve purpose through social and economic change — is spiritless and ineffectual. This is why he encouraged sit-ins, peaceful protests, and mass demonstrations as tools to gain power and achieve change. Although King believed that nonviolent protest was the “most potent weapon” available in the struggle for freedom and equality, he also acknowledged and understood the frequency of riots. In a speech less than a month before he was assassinated, King said that “a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” Although white moderates like to cite King to criticize riots, they often miss a very important point, which is that King was sympathetic to the plight of the rioters because he knew that rioting was, in many cases, the only way they could be heard, and he also knew the deep pain of existing in a racist society that compromises freedom and justice for Black Americans in order to maintain the status quo — something these same white moderates seem very keen on doing.

Now, none of this is to say that Dr. King’s philosophy didn’t have flaws and limitations of its own. Audre Lorde, a Black lesbian feminist philosopher, did a talk called “Learning from the 60s,” which is available in a collection of her work called Sister Outsider, that discussed the shortcomings of 1960s civil rights activists and the limited scope of their activism, which failed to adequately address other forms of oppression that intersect with racism, such as misogyny and homophobia. I strongly encourage anyone striving to be antiracist to look beyond King, to listen to all Black voices and read the work of other Black philosophers and activists, specifically women and members of the LGBTQ+ community (examples: anything by Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Roxane Gay). Not only that, but I encourage the unlearning of biases, stereotypes, and habits — something that I, as a white woman, have been attempting to do and I still have a long way to go.

In order to truly cultivate an antiracist lifestyle and create an antiracist society, we simply cannot continue to distort and weaponize the work of Black activists and thinkers like Dr. King in order to protect the status quo. Real structural change requires unlearning, listening, and allyship on the part of non-Black people. Colorblindness is simply not an option right now — as King said, “we will never solve the problem of racism until there is a recognition of the fact that racism still stands at the center of so much of our nation and we must see racism for what it is.”