A mass effort to re-educate
No one needed my voice to chime in on Martin Luther King Jr. Day other than to signal-boost voices of Black activists.
Every year I am reminded of the time I played a show with my old band and one of us got in a physical fight with someone in the crowd who made a racist joke on this holiday. That's not cool any day, but especially not MLK Day. I'm not into fighting, but defending racial justice is something I'll pretty much always accept throwing punches over.
Speaking to my white readers here, I'm not suggesting you jump directly to physical violence, but now (or literally any moment) is a good time to think about what you would do to defend the kind of justice Dr. King fought for. That means taking the time to educate yourself on the history of his work and others in the civil rights movement beyond the whitewashed version that is taught in school. It means interrogating how racism intersects with issues of class, reproductive health, gender, etc. and how that plays out in your daily life.
It's the bare minimum I can do as a white person is to educate myself. Bare fucking minimum. And I know from practical experience that the more I learn, the more I can act accordingly and try to be a better accomplice in dismantling white supremacy.
Below are some texts that I have found useful including a couple of things on Twitter that are worth your time.
Thanks for reading.
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance,” MLK Jr. wrote in 1967. “It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.” https://t.co/J9iiwgCpTa
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) January 17, 2022
The MLK Tapes
A new podcast investigating the plot to kill Dr. King. Draws from archival recordings as well as new interviews. I've only listened to the first episode so far and have already learned a LOT.
Tony Nabors Consulting on TikTok
Practical racial equity strategies. I initially found his account via this video.
Powell's Antiracist Reading List
And they made another one for kids!
Anti-Racism Daily
"The daily newsletter to dismantle white supremacy." They recently compiled a shortlist of writing and speeches that honor the full legacy of MLK.
Reparations Club
A Black and woman-owned bookstore in Los Angeles but you can also order from them online.
This thread aka the You Gone Learn Today speech
So, I scrapped my original speech and spent the entire first half of it reading excerpts from a bunch of Dr. King's speeches, but without telling anyone that I was doing so, leading the audience to think King's words were mine. And, whew, chile, it was AMAZING.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 17, 2022