“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Letter From Birmingham Jail
Every year around Dr Martin Luther King ‘s holiday - the federal holiday that was established in 1987 through the blood, sweat and tears by those foot soldiers that have gone on before us. Those activists who gave everything in sacrifice for His day. We seem every year to have someone (and they are always White and a Man) who seem to think they know what Dr. King meant, believed or would believe today as he was making his speeches. These persons seem to think they know what Dr. King was believing as he traveled through Alabama looking for a hotel that would house “Colored Folk”, because at everyone turn there were signs reading, no dogs, no jews, no ni&&ers.
They seem to believe they know what Dr. King would say or think today, when writing speeches from Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee in the 50’s and 60’s, when he and his family couldn’t use the public pool, the public toilet, the public bathroom. And you paid the same price to sit at the back of the bus. These Harvard educated White men have no idea what they are talking about. Yet, and again every year we get someone quoting a few lines of Dr. King ‘s message from “I’ve been to the Mountaintop,” mostly the same words- you know content of character, color of skin. And, yet they never, ever, continue the entire speech and have no idea what they’re talking about
I encourage you all to not just peruse Dr. Kings speeches. Read them in their entirety. Marinate the words, let the juices of the vowels and consonants flow throw you. I would beseech Mr. Ackman to read all of Dr. Kings words. Do not snip and pick what sounds good. Because you have an issue with the letters D-E-I. I found it difficult to wonder why Mr. Achman now issues with the letters D-E-I. Mr. Achman has feels so greatly about it that he can buy a white libel democrat to run, pump one million dollars into his campaign and swoosh DEI gone. (Good on you Mr. Achman). But you still have no idea what Dr. King was talking about.
These few words from Dr. Kings “Letter from Birmingham Jail” sums it up so neatly for those who profess to know what Dr. King was thinking or feeling when writing this letter from Bull Connors jail; especially when it comes to the equality of Black people and minorities.
“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 Councilor 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.”
We get it, you think you are so down with the people. You are so progressive. Until your feelings get hurt, because your wife gets busted for plagiarizing or you get caught up in a fraud game. Then you got your money to shut everything down and it’s not so much about equity or equality. It’s about you. Because you own the board. Everyone on that board looks like you, dresses like you, hell even think like you. I say good on you.
But please stop trying to piecemeal Dr. Kings words for your own edification.
Please just stop!
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