A lot of the future that Dr. King believed in is still a ways away for America. In 1966, he told the Medical Committee for Human Rights, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” According to a study done by Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, nearly 45,000 annual deaths can be attributed to a lack of health insurance. Because people can’t afford doctor’s appointments, the expensive medication necessary for diseases like diabetes or coronary heart disease, or other services offered by doctors, people are dying. A lot of these people are from marginalized communities, and aren’t offered the same insurance that wealthier communities are.
Dr. King advocated for workers rights, and advocated for an end to militarism. He believed that for intense poverty to be overcome, workers needed to create unions and fight for labor rights. He would have opposed the unecessary drone killings called for by our recent presidents, and the torture campaigns implemented by the CIA. Our military spending is the largest budget in human history, and is only growing. Dr. King saw the government as perpetually sympathetic to the needs of the military, and hostile to the needs of the poor. He supported social policies that would more evenly distribute wealth in the country, like a national income for the poor or nationalizing major industries. One of the major movements MLK supported was economic equality, and a lot of his beliefs were aligned with socialism, and clearly we’re not there yet.
While the government and politicians seem to love him today, it’s easy to forget that he was a target throughout his life by the CIA, police, and government. Being an activist who was anti-racist, anti-poverty, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-military could put you in a dangerous place in respect to the government, and for many of these, it still can today. MLK was deemed the most dangerous man in America by the FBI and died as an enemy of the state. Martin Luther King, Jr. is revered today by politicians and the general public, but it’s an image of him that has been whitewashed to make him a more moderate figure. Dr. King was radical, and believed in a better America: it’s one we still haven’t found yet, but I hope we soon do.
Firstly MLK was a capitalist who believed that if the African American population were to work hard they would be successful and once they enjoyed the same rights, they would be just the same. MLK would have supported the recent air-strikes on our enemies who pose a threat to the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. was also a christian who was American before anything else. Claiming that MLK was anti-capitalist is like suggesting that Stalin was not a murder, when you say them out loud you see how crazy they sound. If MLK wanted people to afford healthcare, it was out of compation and in no way wished to establish a universal healthcare system. MLK was pro american in the 1960s during the cold war, and to suggest that he would side with the communists is ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteKing was strongly anti-war, saying "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind," which clearly counters the pro-airstrike claim. Furthermore, King said "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence," suggesting he would never support any airstrike on any individual.
DeleteIn his economic views, King stated "The evils of capitalism are just as real as the evils of militarism and racism." King was a socialist, saying "If we are going to achieve a real equality, the U.S. will have to adopt a modified form of socialism," as well as "Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God's children." In fact, King recognized capitalism as the direct cause of such inequality, and conflating anti-capitalism with authoritarianism such as Stalin is a fallacious mistake to make; in reality, though, King opposed the status quo of capitalist racism. Remembering him as anything but a radical, anti-capitalist, Christian socialist would be doing an injustice to his legacy.
On the need for socialism in the United States:
azquotes.com/author/8044-Martin_Luther_King_Jr/tag/socialism
Specifically on opposing capitalism:
thinkprogress.org/mlk-jr-capitalism-dodge-f17fb5bcdb32/
On opposing war:
kinginstitute.stanford.edu/liberation-curriculum/classroom-resources/king-quotes-war-and-peace
On Dr. King's vision of equality in medical care:
pnhp.org/news/dr-martin-luther-king-on-health-care-injustice/