Martin Luther King, Jr: An American Hero and Courageous Zionist Voice
The Civil Rights Leader Showed How it's Done.
Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. Among the most important pieces from this first wave:
What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites
4 Stupid Reasons People Don't Take Antisemitism as Seriously as They Should
Is Qatar the Most Terrible State in the Middle East? Or Is Iran Worse?
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
Why This Bible Thumper Is Going to Keep Using Plenty of Profanity
How Multi-Faith Mysticism & Maimonides Can Bring Peace to Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Everyone
This is the first installment in Volume II, Intended as another 30 Installments exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred in America and globally.
These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and I just wanted to address in brief how - and why - the most important black civil rights leader of the 20th century became and remains one of my most important inspirations.
I remember with some clarity learning the story of King as a child. I had a children’s book which summarized his journey and story. And the image which sticks with me today was an illustration of a young King holding a ball and asking to play with a new friend he had made. The parent of the boy denied King the chance to play with him because of his race.
Perhaps this struck me so deeply because as a child I could remember myself doing the same thing over and over with kids in my neighbor: “Can Andy come out and play?” “Can Elizabeth come out and play?” And to be denied over something as nonsensical as skin color just resonated so deeply.
I see clearly how, growing up, I took King and his message of nonviolent, multi-racial brotherhood for granted. I just assumed that, since we were being taught about the importance of King's work in school, and since my parents impressed King’s civil rights ethos on me as an innate good, that all Americans embraced this. After all, the man had his own holiday! I thought this view was the default. I thought it was self-evident to all Americans that judging others and excluding them on the basis of skin color was simply an absurdity.
It was not until college, when I began blogging and reading books about the current state of race relations, that I was in for a rude awakening. So many black activists had ultimately rejected King’s vision of post-racial brotherhood and instead embraced Malcolm X’s message and the Black Power traditions that followed him into the 1970s. It was such a dejecting realization.
And then I saw how many white people just didn’t give a fuck. In recent years especially, I’ve seen how fears of the oft-misunderstood “Critical Race Theory” have overtaken efforts to bring white and black together in peace. I studied CRT during the Obama years, and found it abhorrent but still a fringe position. And then I watched how, in recent years, the ideology was picked up by right-wing charlatans and popularized into a be-all, end-all explanation for current racial tensions. White suburban parents were urged to fear that their children were being indoctrinated to hate themselves in public schools - an absurd, over-the-top exaggeration. Now I would regularly joke on Twitter, “the new definition of ‘CRT’ is anything that makes suburban white moms uncomfortable.”
And so, contrary to what I grew up believing as a child and a teenager, these issues of black-white racial divisions are more alive than ever.
But the message and example of King still inspires me. His work in the Civil Rights movement is a testament that change is, in fact, possible: that movements can push for and ultimately succeed in passing legislation that can have a meaningful difference; that poisonous cultures can be changed. We’re now at a point in which 94% of Americans approve of interracial relationships. This is compared to 87% in 2013 and shocking 4% in 1958 when Gallup first asked the question. Cultures can change, and it’s up to activists to push for them.
But King is not the only example or only cause in which theorists and writers advocating radical change can succeed. There was a wonderful op/ed today at The Algemeiner highlighting the parallels between Israel’s founding father Theodor Herzel and King. David Matlow declared “Theodor Herzl’s Message is for Everyone”:
I believe there is much we can learn from Herzl. He believed that we are not trapped in the conditions in which we find ourselves, that things can be improved and tomorrow can be better, that anything is possible.
This is a universal message. It speaks to all people, not just Jews. Since Herzl’s dream of a Jewish state came true, everyone else’s can as well.
Herzl was aware of this universality. It is best illustrated in his 1902 book Altneuland (Old-New Land). One of his characters says, “There is still one other question arising out of the disaster of nations which remains unsolved to this day, and whose profound tragedy only a Jew can comprehend. This is the African question. Just call to mind all those terrible episodes of the slave trade, of human beings who, merely because they were black, were stolen like cattle, taken prisoner, captured and sold. Their children grew up in strange lands, the objects of contempt and hostility because their complexions were different.”
“I am not ashamed to say, though I may expose myself to ridicule for saying so, that once I have witnessed the redemption of the Jews, my people, I wish also to assist in the redemption of the Africans,” the character states.
This is remarkable. While dedicating his life to the Jewish people, Herzl also wanted to help end black suffering. He understood that we are only free if we are all free.
Read the whole thing, as the classic blogging saying goes. Matlow also invoked King and the parallel between the civil rights leader’s famous call “I have a dream” and Herzel’s famous cry, “If you will it, it is no dream”:
Both men believed in the power of dreams. King famously said, “I have a dream,” while Herzl’s motto was “If you will it, it is no dream.” They believed in a better future for their people and dedicated themselves to creating it. They advocated publicly for their ideas, and suffered and sacrificed greatly on their behalf.
Matlow had much more of value to say, which I found quite inspirational today as I was editing Algemeiner and scheduling its social media, while the usual editor was without power.
It’s also worth making abundantly clear: King was himself a Zionist. In 1968, 10 days before his assassination, he said this:
Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect her right to exist, its territorial integrity, and the right to use whatever sea lanes it needs. Israel is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security, and that security must be a reality.
King also once rebuked a man advocating anti-Israel sentiment:
“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!”
So on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and on each to come, let’s remember the true values of peace and post-racial brotherhood that this great American leader advocated. In studying his history, we can see a path forward for serious change in our culture and around the world.