On October 30, 2023, American comedian Amy Schumer uploaded to X (formerly known as Twitter) a video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stating the following:
“The whole world must see that Israel must exist and has the right to exist and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”
This tweet came as part of her slurry of pro-Israel tweets that highlight Schumer’s persecution fetish as a Jewish woman in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. Bernice King, daughter of Dr. King responded to this tweet, saying that King also believed militarism, racism, and poverty were interconnected evils, and would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease and for hostages to be released. Dr. King did not live to see the aftermath of the conflicts in the Middle East, but he has left behind a clear stance and ideology against militarism and power used to extort the few. The original speech was used for the intention of standing against the antisemitism that was prevalent during the time, before the apartheid Israel began over the Palestinian people. King saw and condemned the South African apartheid during this time, and if King had lived to see it he would condemn the treatment of Israel today. Yet as new issues arise and we move further and further from King’s death, his words have become more and more separated from the context in which they were spoken.
This isn’t Bernice’s first time calling out people for misappropriating her father’s words. Back on Martin Luther King Jr. day of 2021, she wrote of her frustration towards people who, “evoke him to deter justice today”, and claimed that many people who use his words now would likely hate, and may still, hate the authentic King. This post came just after the January 6 insurrection on the capital, where Trump supporters stormed Congress in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 Presidential election. Since this act of domestic terror, many have used Dr. King’s words to invoke sentiment towards the insurrectionists. Even over a year later on MLK day 2022, the Republicans for National Renewal posted a picture of the January 6 insurrection with Dr. King’s words overlaid, “Riot is the Language of the Unheard”.
This co-opting of King is a product of the era we live in. It is too simple for anyone, no matter their affiliation, to find a quote or statement out of context and apply it to their own agenda. In reality, King’s ideas were not popular with most Americans. At the height of his influence, King had a disapproval rating of 75%. King was a big proponent of reparations, discussing how in the creation of America, the government provided aid, education, and subsidies to white people. This support allowed white people to take land and buy assets and build generational wealth, and the same people with that wealth tell black people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Even today, reparations for descendants of enslaved people is substantially unpopular, with only 30% of U.S. adults expressing that descendants should be repaid in some way. However, none of these people on the right using King’s words agree with that position. In fact, only 8% of Republican leaning people agree with giving reparations, and their views on the amount to give are very light. King also was vehemently anti-war. During the Vietnam War, he said the American government can find millions to send and maintain soldiers in south Vietnam, yet nothing for the children in Selma. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which thrust us into the Vietnam war, received an 88-2 vote in the Senate. These were all positions that put King in the crosshairs of America, and they are positions still held onto today. The vote to invade Afghanistan passed the senate with a 98-0 vote. The same people in power who would have called out King’s stances on these issues in the past would have done the same in the 21st century.
King also shared very open critiques on capitalism, guaranteed income, and the redistribution of wealth. These stances would have made him incredibly unpopular with modern conservatives. For universal basic income, 78% of Republican-leaning voters oppose a basic income of just $1000. Only 66% of Democratic voters are in favor of this. Looking ahead at our future, prominent figures of the Republican party such as Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently polling at 13% for the 2024 presidential election, are aggressively pushing for “Anti-Woke” policy. DeSantis issued the “Stop WOKE Act” in Florida in 2022, restricting the teaching of topics such as critical race theory as well as workplace diversity training. In the introduction of this bill, he quotes King’s words to invoke a sense of justness in his own bigotry. Per contra, King and his dissenters openly attacked anti-critical race theory legislation being passed back in the 60’s and onward. King led the “woke mob” that so many fight against in today’s political climate. During the Covid pandemic when vaccine rollout began, U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene began a political war against vaccinations, comparing vaccination cards and mask mandates to what the Nazis did to the Jews and segregation. NFL Quarterback Aaron Rodgers quoted Dr. King when it came out that he refused to get vaccinated, stating “The great M.L.K said ‘You have a moral obligation to object to unjust rules, and rules that make no sense.’” What he doesn’t mention is how King explicitly stated how he wanted everyone to have access to and receive vaccinations and medical care.
It is so easy to take a quote off the Internet to justify one’s own beliefs. A quick Google search, find a nice quote, and shape it to fit your narrative. One could find support for any ideology with the plethora of Dr. King’s words out of context. It has been nearly 55 years since King was assassinated, and we have drifted further and further from the man that was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and more towards select words that prevailed after death. People don’t bring up his views on democratic socialism. Had he not died, he would be another woke communist trying to destroy America in the eyes of conservatives. His legacy has devolved into residing between the quotation marks of people forgetting that they would have been on the side of those who pulled the trigger.