Whitewashing

It is January, and in the U.S. this means it is time for the annual ritual of revisiting the white-washed, de-radicalized, pro- “American” M.L. King fairytale as part of the official celebration of King’s birthday.  In the official story, Dr. King was not the creation of the movement that was fighting for the democratic and human rights of Black people. No, it was Dr. King who created the movement, according to the colonial white elite and the neocolonial Black misleadership. In this story, the objectives of the movement were not for radical social transformation and Black self-determination but the redemption of the U.S. settler-colonial nation/state and the quiet integration of Black people into the state. In other words, to complete the establishment of a “more perfect nation,” as Obama would put it.