“The people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will”: Reflections on Dr. King’s Legacy
Today, I’m angry like Dr. King was angry.
I suspect you forgot that Dr. King was angry.
Perhaps you forgot because had a shadow, a parallel he was so often compared to who you may have turned into an opposite. Today, Malcolm carries the burden of Martin’s anger even though Martin was killed three years after Malcolm was killed.
I’m angry because, as far into the future as we can reasonably see, we are not even allowed the creative imagination of building a better world. We are bound to wrestle free the legacy of Dr. King from those who wish to weaponize their image of him against those who follow in his footsteps through their actions. Those who participate in non-violent direct action are told that the many ways they disappoint his legacy by others who believe their own moderation and inactivity are more exemplary of Dr. King’s spirit.
We don’t even have the time to shed tears to mourn our inability to imagine or to do any kind of new movement work. We are still doing the old work, with moderate white liberalism, created by today’s man, tying us up in a bureaucratic labyrinth of justification that keeps us at arms’ length from our desire to reach a more equitable world. Today’s man has learned to no longer draft laws that look unjust on their face. The injustice comes through the application of laws or more nefariously in the details of their expression. Through these forms of abstraction, we’re bound to push the boulder of Dr. King and Malcolm X’s project up a mountain that has been slicked with a film of moderation and liberalism, keeping that rock spinning in place, no matter how hard we push. By obfuscating their meaning and desire, racists and conservatives have learned how to win support from those who have grown a distaste for overt racism.
Martin is eulogized decades later by today’s man, comprised of the same people who hated him. By today’s man, he is eulogized opposite his friend Malcolm. Today he’s eulogized by the white moderate who still makes a joke of Malcolm, who has become Dr. King’s shadow, his opposite, who carries the weight of rage and anger for injustice. We crown Dr. King as Christ-like, in the image of today’s moderate, leading with love and not with extremism, despite his own words. The sacrifice of both Christ and King are fondly remembered, but never their disdain for the merchant class, the false idolators, or the enabling bystanders.
Dr. King was an extremist for justice, as was his right, but we’ve painted over his own words to erase him of anger and make him appear docile.
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
Why do we hold such disdain for anger. Anger gave us this country, this stolen land. Did you forget that we stole this land, which stolen people toiled?
Anger gives us the will to act. Anger can fuel the machine of change. Anger can inspire action. Anger that fuels a will to repair is an act of love. Anger can come from frustration. Frustration can be born from the loneliness that comes with choosing to name the problem. Did you forget that the problem had a name?
Frustration can be born from the failure of others. Frustration can manifest in only a few forms other than anger. On its way to action, frustration surely touches the waters of anger, even if it doesn’t plunge into them. The value of anger depends on the desire in the hearts of the angry. Anger inspires action in those who wish for better. Anger inspires those with good will to change their own behavior with the goal of inspiring others. Anger inspires guilt in the hearts of certain well-meaning narcissists who don’t wish to bear responsibility for the problem. Did you forget you may have been responsible for the problem?
“I have no despair about the future”
So many people in power today, so many with wealth, so many of our elders were contemporary with Dr. King. They were alive, some as children, some as young adults, when Dr. King’s work was seen as valuable by just 26% of the population. Today’s population of retirees, over 70 years old, were of voting age when Dr. King was murdered.
The legacy that we still contend with lives with us today. Many of those contemporaries celebrating Dr. King as an abstract day on a calendar have forgotten his anger, and today turn against our anger, no matter how closely it echoes his own.
Today’s man was alive in 1968, if not in body, in spirit. The legacy itself is just a hair over 50 years old, not even old enough to retire. One in three adults lived through his murder, yet not nearly that number hold kinetic anger over his death.
Anger must be welcome in our social fabric, in this grand and dysfunctional family that we seek to repair and redeem. It is the black sheep which was created, intended or not, by the way we raised this family, with the habits and trauma of past generations, in denial of our own actions, and by the way we loved or failed to love one another. Did you forget this was an act of love?
“Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment”
On this holiday, today’s man celebrates a time when, in all statistical likelihood, he did not act. He celebrates the one who did. He celebrates the one who he or his father called angry. He celebrates the one he sentenced to death for the generosity of his spirit. He celebrates today, so that tomorrow, the image of Dr. King may become a tool to punish others and shame others for their anger. Dr. King becomes an avatar for who he wants today’s actor to become.
Today’s actor must contend with the image of who today’s man wants them to be. Today’s actor sees that non-violence is no less criticized than violence. Today’s actor sees that there are priorities for what gets airtime on the evening news, public radio, what gets shared widely online. Today’s actor is outraged, 50 years later, to be asking for the same things from many of the same people but today’s man asks today’s actor to be more like Dr. King.
A good faith interpretation is that perhaps he wants today’s actor to be less angry. However, he denies the anger of Dr. King, an anger that inspires the flame of love and direct action, through this interpretation. Is this interpretation accidental?
Another interpretation is that today’s man wants today’s actor to be like the image of the dead man. He foists the dead hero upon today’s actor like an oversized suit to show him that it doesn’t fit. He wants today’s actor to fit this suit so badly. Today’s man closes his eyes and sees a perfect black and white image of Dr. King in his suit and tie, standing with his mouth closed, eyes looking away, mute, unchanging, suspended forever.
Does he want today’s actor dead? Does today’s man realize that he’s telling today’s actor he wants the actor dead for his anger? Does he care that the anger and frustration are born out of love?
Today’s man celebrates a misinterpreted dream of Dr. King, or any of yesterday’s revolutionaries, with such confusion that today’s man might actually long for the death of today’s actor, who, to him, looks like an imposter. Today’s man has come to believe in the created image of Dr. King so strongly that any repetition feels blasphemous. When today’s actor attempts to arouse the conscience, sometimes a spiteful beast is awoken, one frustrated by the very fact that there is more work to be done, regardless of whether that beast shall be the one that is burdened with the task.
Make no mistake: today’s man asks for the death of today’s actor not because he threatens to take it violently. Today’s man equates non-violence as inaction. He asks for this death because subconsciously he knows he is at war. He longs each day to forget. He forms a fortress through his social fabric, through his relationships, through symbols and associations.
Today’s man longs to give the account for the war just like he or his father did for Dr. King. In this account, today’s man will be a friend to all and the dead will be given a seat next to god as an epitome, as an inspiration.
The continued existence of the conflict is a reminder of today’s man’s place in it and it is not a welcome or flattering reminder.
To my fellow actors of today, do not despair, do not avoid your anger, and above all, do not die, whether in spirit, motivation, or in body. Be present for your neighbor and continue to hold love for who you want your neighbor, today’s man, to be. Increase your expectations of them by increasing your commitment to expressions of love inspired by anger. Be enraged but always find work for that rage to do. There is so much work for that rage to do.
xx
