Living in the imperial core, whenever MLK Day rolls around I think a lot about how often MLK Jr is quoted. So many quotes.
I grew up in Korea where I learned about him in a different context. He was a foreigner and part of international history. So my learning of him was not through his quotes but around his political grounding and actions.
When I came to the US Empire, the only way I learned about MLK was through his quotes. This was so strange to me because for most people we learned about them through what they did, rather than what they said. But for MLK, it was always, “Here’s an MLK quote to learn about him.”
He is quoted so much that people are exhausted, rightly so, by the performativity of it all.
MLK Jr was an incredible orator, yes, but I believe he is quoted so often for more nefarious reasons.
He was much more than his magnificent quotes, but it is interesting to witness how he is often reduced to just his quotes.
This is quite intentional.
Too often people take his quotes and words out of context. They will quote just a portion that sounds reformist, rather than the revolutionary intent.
One of the reasons I believe he is quoted so much is so that white cis het colonial dominant culture can control the narrative. So people pick what they want to share while not talking about the fact that he was a socialist talking often of revolt and radical change.
So this is a challenge for my fellow non-Black folks.
Let’s do the things even before quoting the things.
Let us live the words. Let us do the words. Let us always match our say with our do. Otherwise we will not get to collective liberation, we will only be talking about it.
Let’s go. Let’s do.
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