White Washing

A man asked me, in an argument last week, "what did Martin Luther King Jr. do?" The man asking this question was middle aged, he was white, and he was asking this question as a conviction of sorts; an end to our argument, or so he thought. What he was planning with this incrimination of a Black History Hero, was to watch me struggle while listing legitimate accomplishments of MLK, and to then throw in my face that MLK had seemingly never done anything concrete. And then to use this discovery as a base for some claim. What he hadn't planned on, was my extensive frustration with White Washing, enter our new argument. White washing is a popular term keyed toward the cinema industry, referring to Hollywood's tendency to make ethnically diverse characters more appealing to white audiences. However, for the sake of this blog, I'm going to refer to white washing as the tendency of America white washing ethnic history. Let's break that down, using MLK Jr. as an example, thanks to our Middle-Aged white friend for so eagerly offering to us. Martin Luther King Jr. is shoved in our luke-warm Civil Rights/Black history education from a very young age, every year from primary school through secondary. And when you hear his name, two things notoriously come to mind: the I Have A Dream Speech and peaceful-protest. However, the issue at hand is that there are no specifics. There are no details. We were never adequately taught the specific workings of MLK, his concrete accomplishments; and this was no accident. American public school systems did not miraculously forget to teach us the truth about MLK, just as they did not accidentally forget to mention pivotal aspects of radical groups, such as the Black Panthers or Malcolm X. Herein lies the issue. American public schooling, for many years, has managed to pick and choose specific aspects of all sides of the Civil Rights history, that add up to a fuzzy, non inclusive, white washed history. Let's go back to MLK; he's the all star, isn't he? He was the black hero! Except that he wasn't. And we should know that. It wasn't a one man job, AT ALL! It took a movement. But the only time we ever mention Malcom X, or any radical group, we mention that they were blindly angry, unorganized, unsupervised, and ultimately unsuccessful. And why do you think they do this? Because they want to control future history. They promote the idea that to be successful in a historical movement, you have to be peaceful, calm, reactive, religious, MLK was a reverend for God's sake. And that radicalism is unsuccessful. Because they're afraid. They know that radicalism worked. The government fears powerful black men, and their main control is to manipulate the education of public school children into believing that MLK's way, is the only way. They white wash us.

#Tabatha