{"id":27812,"date":"2016-01-19T08:54:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T12:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=27812"},"modified":"2016-01-26T22:21:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T02:21:40","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-complicated-legacy-of-our-white-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2016\/01\/martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-complicated-legacy-of-our-white-past.html","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King Jr. and the Complicated Legacy of Our White Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day. Yesterday was also the day I told my six-year-old daughter that her great-great-grandfather was a member of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s. Once she got it\u2014I had to explain what the KKK was, after all\u2014her response was one of utter horror. Or rather, one of horror mixed with bewilderment. \u201cWhy?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhy?!\u201d When I told her that her great-great-great grandmother used to boast that black people weren\u2019t allowed in her county after sundown, her consternation only increased.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy, on a day like yesterday, to imagine racial discrimination as something remote and unrelated to ourselves, or families, or our heritages. After all, we would have been one of the good guys<\/em> if we\u2019d<\/em> been alive back then! Right? Actually, for most white Americans, that\u2019s a big fat no<\/em>. If we\u2019d lived back then we\u2019d very likely have had the same sorts of prejudices our ancestors had.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not always that<\/em> far away, either. One of my daughter\u2019s great-grandparents continued to use the n-word until the day he died, and my husband remembers him complaining about the time a black family moved onto his block and ruined his housing\u00a0value. Another of my daughter\u2019s great-grandparents once told me they\u2019d chosen to move to the neighborhood my mother grew up in because the schools in the next locale\u00a0over were \u201cviolent\u201d and \u201cdangerous\u201d\u2014read\u00a0black<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And of course, as we well know, the struggle isn\u2019t over. If I had a nickel for every white American eager\u00a0to lift Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model while simultaneously suggesting\u00a0that Trayvon Martin, or Freddie Grey, or Laquan MacDonald likely\u00a0deserved<\/em> to get shot, I\u2019d be rich. The struggle changes, but the battle lines remain the same. What these individuals fail to realize is that if they\u2019d been alive half a century ago, they would have been among Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s detractors<\/em>, not among his admirers.<\/p>\n

In his\u00a0famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, penned in 1963, King\u00a0took primary aim not at the KKK or white racists but rather at white moderates.<\/p>\n

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I must\u00a0make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro\u2019s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor 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, \u201cI agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can\u2019t agree with your methods of direct action\u201d; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man\u2019s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a \u201cmore convenient season.\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, King\u2019s popularity with the public at large was on an upswing<\/a> when he penned those words. Indeed, King made Gallup\u2019s \u201cMost Admired Man\u201d list in 1964 and 1965. He did not make the list in 1966, however, and Gallup did not measure his popularity in 1967 or in 1968, the year he died.<\/p>\n

1963: 41% positive and 37% negative<\/p>\n

1964: 43% positive and 39% negative<\/p>\n

1965: 45% positive and 45% negative<\/p>\n

1966: 32% positive and 63% negative<\/p>\n

Why did King\u2019s popularity dip after 1965? Put simply, King made white people increasingly uncomfortable as time went on. The summer of 1965 saw riots in Los Angeles, and in early 1966 King turned his focus to housing segregation in Chicago. An increasing number of white Americans associated King with violence, and many\u00a0in the North who praised him as he sought to address racism and segregation in\u00a0the South turned on him when he brought the same message to the North.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an excerpt from Matt Pearce\u2019s recent Los Angeles Times article,\u00a0When Martin Luther King Jr. took his fight into the North, and saw a new level of hatred<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Fifty years ago this January, King embarked on a less-remembered chapter from the final years of his life, a battle that ultimately went unfinished \u2014 a campaign against poverty and de facto segregation in the North that was met with institutional resistance, skepticism from other activists and open violence.<\/p>\n