In honor of Martin Luther King Day last year, I wrote about the mainstream media's reluctance to reflect on anything other than the iconic orator of the "I Have A Dream" speech. Along with many others in alternative media, I pointed to Dr. King's speech "Beyond Vietnam" as an example of the forgotten, inconvenient King: the anti-war humanist who called for a "revolution of values" and excoriated the United States for being "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today"; the moral leader who better than anyone connected the dots in America between food and bullets, poverty and power, reality and propaganda.
So it was pleasantly surprising to see Sunday's Associated Press article "Popular View of King Ignores Complexity." It's one thing for this to pop up in an alternative media outlet, but quite another for it to land on our nation's #1 newswire. (Is this the result of alternative media's efforts, propelled by its growing clout and popularity? Whatever the case, let's just say easy access to all those online articles, posts, videos and transcripts - the democracy of the Internet that Big Telecom seeks to curtail - didn't hurt.)
With the exception of "some say," AP journalist Deepti Hajela frames his piece by expressing, in part, the longtime alternative media view on King's treatment:
But nearly 40 years after his assassination in April 1968, after the deaths of his wife and of others who knew both the man and what he stood for, some say King is facing the same fate that has befallen many a historical figure — being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.
Hajela soon delves into the reality usually absent in mainstream media coverage of MLK Day.
At the time of his death, King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War in 1967, and was in Memphis in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.
King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation" — and when he pronounced "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.
"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.
But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital "to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact," Sitkoff said.
The most salient passage in the article describes one reason (though there are many of course) why it's so crucial for the mainstream media, along with politicians and teachers, to discuss and examine the other sides of King and his message.
That does a disservice to both King and society, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University.
By freezing him at that point, by putting him on a pedestal of perfection that doesn't acknowledge his complex views, "it makes it impossible both for us to find to new leaders and for us to aspire to leadership," Harris-Lacewell said.
She believes it's important for Americans in 2008 to remember how disliked King was in 1968.
"If we forget that, then it seems like the only people we can get behind must be popular," Harris-Lacewell said. "Following King meant following the unpopular road, not the popular one." [Emphasis mine.]
King himself echoed this in "Beyond Vietnam," unwittingly foreshadowing his sanitized image:
Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.
Today, with our mainstream news fully commodified and distilled through a handful of corporations, with our "citizens" long ago having been supplanted by "consumers," our country has moved with ever greater "difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought."
Thus, it should come as no surprise why this Dr. King was boarded up and abandoned: almost 40 years later, this King still threatens the establishment. Meanwhile, members of the same establishment shamelessly continue to co-opt and manipulate his legacy while discarding his uncomfortable truths.
King has "slipped into the realm of symbol that people use and manipulate for their own purposes," [Glenn] McNair [associate professor of history at Kenyon College] said.
Harris-Lacewell said that is something people need to push back against.
"It's not OK to slip into flat memory of who Dr. King was, it does no justice to us and makes him to easy to appropriate," she said. "Every time he gets appropriated, we have to come out and say that's not OK. We do have the ability to speak back."
This article certainly has its flaws. Why not, for example, show us how "by taking on issues outside segregation, he [King] had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines"? This passing detail fails to impart the impact of Time magazine having called his "Beyond Vietnam" speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi" or of the Washington Post having proclaimed "King had diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."
Another glaring omission is the article's failure to mention by name "Beyond Vietnam" or any of King's other more progressive addresses or writings, or to provide links to their transcripts or videos. How can a news story on Martin Luther King - specifically one purporting to spotlight his forgotten legacy - report that "He had spoken out against the Vietnam War in 1967..." but not cite even one major speech in which this occurred?
Yet considering the mainstream media's negligent track record in reporting on Dr. King's legacy, journalist Deepti Hajela and the AP deserve some credit for presenting this story at all, despite its shortcomings. Though the words and deeds of the latter day King should also be reported widely each year, the fact is it's not. So if this is a step in the right direction, I applaud the AP for "following the unpopular road."
AP Deserves Credit for Presenting MLK Complexity
Posted by: Brad Jacobson | January 22, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Personally, I'd say the use of the word "complexity" tells you the real story, which is that MLK was far more radical than people know and the mainstream media can admit. Ask his close friend Harry Belafonte. As Belafonte told Charlie Rose (who promptly cut him off and ended the show), Dr. King was a socialist and knew that "radical economic restructuring" was the next phase in the struggle for racial equality. If you doubt that, watch the episode of "Eyes on the Prize II" that covers 1967 and 1968.
"Complexity"? -- not so much.
Posted by: Michael Dawson | January 24, 2008 at 07:27 PM