Letter-Opinion
By Clifford Jackson
January 15th 2024 would have been the 95th birthday of Dr. King. What we are seeing today in this country is what Dr. King said about America “it is a SICK society “ , and his legacy has been categorically perverted over the last 56 years. MLK Day has been defined by the corporate media as a “ Day of service “. What this message is conveying is an absolute prefabrication of his message as far as what he went through being arrested more than thirty times protesting American apartheid and the fact that he was bearing the cross like Jesus of Nazareth.
I am not a fan of organized religion for many reasons especially Christianity in this society which is a total fraud on so many different levels. One thing I do know from my journalism over the past 40 years as well as reading and doing previous pieces on Dr. King is that the essential message of Jesus of Nazareth is feeding and helping the poor and the infirmed. As well as fighting for social justice for your fellow human being.
Dr. King epitomized the meaning of that. Martin Luther King was a revolutionary in the same way as Malcolm X. That definition of him has been erased and replaced, especially by the corporate media, with a commercialized and sanitized image of him that in essence makes him more acceptable to white America.
Malcolm X understood America as a country that was rooted in evil. All you have to do is to look at Americas foundation: the enslavement of black Africans more people than any other country during the civil war, and the rape murder and genocide of indigenous peoples. Malcolm X said black people “ we’re living in a cycle of disease, poverty and death in America because they are defined as sub human beings.”
Dr. King was walking and talking the same path as Jesus of Nazareth when he organized with labor unions the Judaic community as well the student movements under the tutelage of Bayard Rustin to fight the many injustices of the American political economic and social system. Dr. King said “ the United States is the biggest purveyor of violence “. Does this sound like a man that was just interested in having people perform a day of service once a year?
Martin Luther King Jr. understood that also, he saw the barbaric conditions that black people and indigenous people experienced because of sub standard housing that included rat and roach infested dwellings especially in the north , poor medical care, brutal violence against black people and indigenous by the white community in general and certainly by the police. Those conditions existed north and south because of the pathological violence of whites and that treatment continues in various degrees to this day. Dr. King beared the cross on so many different levels but it was summed up when he said, in Alabama in February 1968. “ I’m not only concerned about black poor, I’m concerned about white poor, Puerto Rican poor, Mexican poor “.
Dr. King saw the grinding poverty in this country that affected all groups but disproportionately impacted black, brown and indigenous people. Who were as he saw despised and had a much more dehumanizing every day existence especially the south. Dr. Kings “i have a dream speech “has been commercialized to the extent that it has become perverted in this society just like the holiday season. Where his real meaning of having all of us “ sit at the table of brotherhood “ meant a revolutionary change of this society from top to bottom. We see that need today with a society and culture that is morally depraved, with all of the excesses that are concomitant to that depravity.
The 25,000 that die from gun violence a every year in this society as well as the tens of thousands that die every year from opioid overdoses, that is glaring in westchester county, brings home what Dr. King also said of America “ this is a soulless society “.
Martin Luther King jr was the most hated man in America during the last year of his life especially after his speech that he made on April 4, 1967 “ Beyond Vietnam”. Condemning Americas unmitigated violence around the world. In America the real god is not Moses, Jesus or Jehovah and certainly is not Allah its Money. That is one of many reasons why this holiday is such a perversion of as the late Gil Noble said “An Amazing Grace”
Clifford Jackson, Larchmont
