The media attempts to make him a cuddly, “peaceful revolution” teddy bear so all future activists can be compared to him, so any movement that’s not completely submissive is seen as inferior and undeserving of recognition. The same policing system that beat and hosed MLK and his fellow activists still preys on blackness with no accountability. Ferguson, Missouri rioters and protesters who refuse to let the cycle continue have been vilified. This year in particular, I’m sure the “fair, balanced” and hamhanded commentary will have his legacy diametrically opposed to the protests and riots going on. They will discuss how he stressed nonviolence, but they won’t discuss how he said “a riot is the language of the unheard”, and “if the total slum violations of law by the white man over the years were calculated and were compared with the lawbreaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man.”
