Death of the Liberal Class - Chris Hedges [103]
“King’s words have been appropriated by the people who rejected him in the 1960s,” said James Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York and is the author of Martin & Malcolm & America:So by making his birthday a national holiday, everybody claims him even though they opposed him while he was alive. They have frozen King in 1963 with his “I Have a Dream” speech. That is the one that can best be manipulated and misinterpreted. King also said, shortly after the Selma march and the riots in Watts, “They have turned my dream into a nightmare.”
“Mainstream culture appeals to King’s accent on love, as if it can be separated from justice,” Cone said:For King, justice defines love. It can’t be separated. They are intricately locked together. This is why he talked about agape love and not some sentimental love. For King, love was militant. He saw direct action and civil disobedience in the face of injustice as a political expression of love because it was healing the society. It exposed its wounds and its hurt. This accent on justice for the poor is what mainstream society wants to separate from King’s understanding of love. But for King, justice and love belong together.31
Malcolm X, who could never be an establishment icon because of his refusal to appeal to the white ruling class and the liberal elite, converged with King’s teachings in the last months of his life. But it would be wrong to look at this convergence as a domestication of Malcolm X. Malcolm influenced King as deeply as King influenced Malcolm. At the end of their lives, each saw the many faces of racism and realized that the issue was not simply sitting at a lunch counter with whites—blacks in the North could in theory do this—but rather being able to afford the lunch. King and Malcolm were both deeply informed by their faith. They adhered to belief systems, one Christian and the other Muslim, that demanded strict moral imperatives and justice.
King, when he began his calls for integration, argued that hard work and perseverance could make the American dream available for rich and poor, white and black. This is the staple message and mythology embraced by the liberal class. King grew up in the black middle class. He was well educated and comfortable in the cultural and social circles of the liberal class. He admitted that until his early twenties, life had been wrapped up for him like “a Christmas present.” He naïvely thought that integration was the answer. He trusted, ultimately, in the liberal, white power structure to recognize the need for justice for all of its citizens. Like most college-educated blacks, he shared the same value system and preoccupation with success as the liberal whites with whom he sought to integrate.
But this was not Malcolm’s America. Malcolm grew up in urban poverty in Detroit, dropped out of school in eighth grade, was shuttled between foster homes, was abused, hustled on city streets, and eventually ended up in prison. There was no evidence in his hard life of a political order that acknowledged his humanity or dignity. The white people he knew did not exhibit a conscience or compassion. And in the ghetto, where survival was a daily battle, nonviolence was not a credible option.
“No, I’m not an American,” Malcolm said:I’m one of 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the . . . victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver—no, not I! I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare!32
King came to appreciate Malcolm’s insights, especially after he confronted the insidious racism in Chicago. A visit to the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965,