To The Editor:
Geri Procaccini’s letter was a little sad and disturbing. She seems to be saying that nothing we can do will change anything. In my worst of days, I feel that too. But then she quotes MLK who is someone I admire and who has been very influential in my life. The paragraphs she uses of his were incredibly incendiary in the 1950s and 1960s. He was heavily criticized by liberals for saying things like this. Liberals wanted him to focus on civil rights only. They believed that criticizing the Vietnam War and especially capitalism would ruin his reputation and support. They too said that his anti-war rhetoric would lose the conservative white folks. MLK could not have kept a job either then or now, and he was censored in the most serious way: He was murdered. So, then you ask, “… what has changed?”
The sanitized versions of MLK as this nonviolent hero miss the fact that he had a very complicated relationship with the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers. He was very discreet in his criticisms of demonstrations that became violent. “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are more important than people …” He was talking about the same things we’re talking about now. A cop (or white person, Kyle Rittenhouse) can take a human life with impunity but burn down a building (or steal a flag) and you’re a violent thug. So yeah, nothing changes. We still value things over human beings and capitalism still teaches us that selfishness is more important than working together.
But I believe that stealing a flag or burning a building is sometimes necessary to get the attention of the people in power. I’ve been in the movement towards a humane and just society for about a half century now. Black lives still don’t matter and MAGA is still used as a justification to demonize our fellow citizens. We won’t stop now, and I won’t criticize my fellow citizens who act against that oppression and injustice.
Robin Lehman
Warren
