MLK Day As Seen Through The Lens Of 2016

[dales]

First off, let me wish all posters here a Happy MLK Day.

I was wondering how this holiday reflects contemporary times as opposed to the forces of 1968.

Look how far we have come (or how far we as a society need to go) in order to reach Dr. Kings vision?

Thoughts?

[wesw]

thank you, dales

happy holiday to you too.

I think that we should all just listen to, and spread, his words and deeds anew

[dales]

[Scooter]

Because civil rights marches in the 60s never blocked any traffic

[dales]

If you say so

Those marches cannot be compared with the BLM thugs.

eta: I hope there weren't any emergency vehicles trying to cross the Bay Bridge.

[dales]

BLM vs. MLK Civil Disobedience

New York — In years past, the civil rights mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. was taken up by other charismatic leaders, political figureheads such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton – each a skilled orator with roots in the black church, which in many ways is still the center of community life and politics for black Americans.

But as the country remembers Dr. King on Monday, a new generation of activists is doing things differently. Many within the Black Lives Matter movement are uncomfortable with venerating any "great man" of the past, and they reject the idea that any dynamic figurehead should embody their struggle today.

Younger protesters are doing much of their work through social media, and they're deciding that the social conservatism of many black churches is

“I think Black Lives Matter is right to reject some of what is called 'top-down leadership,' ” says Randal Jelks, professor of African-American studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Indeed, many activists see the Black Lives Matter movement as consciously unmoored from the traditions of authoritative figures giving emotional, rousing speeches and becoming the face of a movement. And while King’s sweeping, prophetic visions of racial harmony still have their place, many think that the framework of the Occupy movement is a better fit with their aims.

“Occupy Wall Street was an early example of young people trying to think of new systems of not just how to communicate, but how to protest, how to dissent and that sort of thing,” says Louie Dean Valencia García, a teaching fellow at Fordham University in New York and a historian who studies youth culture and emerging models of dissent.

“Occupy Wall Street promoted ‘consensus space decisionmaking’ – which is essentially a type of pluralism and which isn’t the same as a majority vote,” Mr. García adds. “And I think Black Lives Matter has done this in many ways as well.”

With this changed outlook, a generational rift has grown between older civil rights activists and their younger counterparts.

“In the circles I’m in, there’s a lot of suspicion about the direction of Black Lives Matter leaders who say they’re not leaders,” says Mark Naison, professor of African-American studies at Fordham University. Without a strong, visible leadership, the movement could be “subject to very powerful forces, which are themselves hierarchical, and they have a lot of power and money to co-opt the movement.”

Dr. Jelks, too, thinks some of the ideas about a decentralized leadership model and consensus decisionmaking can be “naive.” “That was the trouble with Occupy,” he says. “Everyone can’t always have an equal voice.”

And yet many in Black Lives Matter disregard traditional political movements. Last year, a number of protesters disrupted a Netroots Nation forum featuring Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. Members of the movement also interrupted a campaign event for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.

Black Lives Matter leaders say the absence of visible figureheads is also for reasons of safety.

“[A] movement with a singular leader or a few visible leaders is vulnerable, because those leaders can be easily identified, harassed, and killed, as was the case with Dr. King,” says the coalition’s website, BlackLivesMatter.com.

For some young activists considering King almost 50 years after his death, the issue is about how he tends to be portrayed.

“Part of our work in this generation has been about reclaiming MLK, and the ways that this government, in a lot of ways, has totally whitewashed his legacy,” Patrisse Cullors, an artist and activist in Los Angeles who is considered one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter, told NPR this past week.

“As a young kid growing up, what we were given was the 'Dream' speech,” Ms. Cullors continued, referencing King’s famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. “We weren't given his grass-roots organizing, we weren't given that King was a local organizer. We weren't given everything he did up until the Voting Rights Act. And when I joined this movement as a young person, I realized, oh, King is so much more.”

Not all young activists, however, are convinced that everything must be done differently. Some are open to Black Lives Matter taking multiple forms.

“I think where we are at is that we are open to a myriad of strategies and a myriad of tactics,” Opal Tometi, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told The Atlantic last year. “We know that there are some people who will be inspired to work within the system as is. We’re not going to condemn them or denigrate all those actions.” [how magnaiminous of you!]

“We think that everybody, no matter where you are, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, whatever your job is – you have a duty in this moment in history to take action and stand on the side of people who have been oppressed for generations,” she added.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/20 ... e-only-way

[wesw]

Jackson and Sharpton do not represent the Dream of dr king, nor are they his legacy, IMHO.

didn t think much of that last article, not even enough to finish reading it.

eta- I read the last bit just now... they have no figureheads for reasons of safety?

you ain t no dr king then, alice....

some things is worth the risk, and if it aint worth the risk either you, or your cause ain t all that.

[Scooter]

I hope there weren't any emergency vehicles trying to cross the Bay Bridge.

If there had been, it would have been plastered all over the news. So you are purposely attempting to invent imaginary scenarios in order to denigrate people engaged in peaceful protest. Bravo.

[Scooter]

And yet many in Black Lives Matter disregard traditional political movements. Last year, a number of protesters disrupted a Netroots Nation forum featuring Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. Members of the movement also interrupted a campaign event for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.

And delegates and supporters of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party protested and disrupted the 1964 Democratic National Convention, with the full support of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Plus ça change...

[rubato]

I hope there weren't any emergency vehicles trying to cross the Bay Bridge.

If there had been, it would have been plastered all over the news. So you are purposely attempting to invent imaginary scenarios in order to denigrate people engaged in peaceful protest. Bravo.

The city and county of San Francisco have their own fleets of emergency vehicles, hospitals &c as does Oakland. Even as an imaginary scenario, it is implausible.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

[dales]

Glad to see rube and scoots up to their old selves.

Sorry, I don't view the KING marches of 50 years ago and the "in your face" tactics of BLM as equivalent.

Getting in people's faces will not win people over to your cause.

[Lord Jim]

It seems to me that the main thrust of the 60's MLK civil rights movement was to stand up to intimidation and harassment....

While the main thrust of the BLM movement seems to be to engage in intimidation and harassment...

[MajGenl.Meade]

...and MLK & the SLC etc. always (?) obtained government permits to march

Maybe not always... but it seemed that way

[Scooter]

[Guinevere]

When the old methods don't work you move on to new methods. I agree with Scoot, the protests are well within the spirit of Dr King's movement and I think he would be right out there with them.

[oldr_n_wsr]

As someone who commutes daily (minimum of 45 minutes each way, did have a 5 hour commute once) I would be greatly pissed off if they (or anyone) shut down the road. To the point where they would lose any support I might have given them and their cause.
Sorry, disrupting the livelyhood of everyone else does not go over well with me (and I would venture to guess neither with my fellow commuters).

[MajGenl.Meade]

I call bullshit

The bus boycott inconvenienced only the black travelers themselves when they refused to use the buses. They didn't seek to stop white bus riders getting to work.

So let's see - permits to march; inconveniencing only oneself.... seems to me like BLM has nothing remotely in common with MLK

[wesw]

yep. and they sat at the lunch counter to get a sammich, they didn t burn it down to get a sammich..., well not until after they killed dr king anyway....

[Scooter]

As someone who commutes daily (minimum of 45 minutes each way, did have a 5 hour commute once) I would be greatly pissed off if they (or anyone) shut down the road. To the point where they would lose any support I might have given them and their cause.
Sorry, disrupting the livelyhood of everyone else does not go over well with me (and I would venture to guess neither with my fellow commuters).

I guess you would have been very unhappy to have been on that bus with Rosa Parks that day, because her refusal to give up her seat to a white person meant that none of the passengers were getting where they needed to be until the police came and hauled her ass off to jail.