Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
is a day of service and celebration for a beautiful Black man who fought and lost his life for civil rights. Lately, it’s also become a day when brands and individuals with a well-documented history of epitomizing everything the late Dr. King was against—including outright racism—use his quotes to make themselves feel better.
While MLK Day was signed into law as a federal holiday in 1983, let’s not gloss over the fact that King was assassinated in 1968. And at the time of his death, King was one of the least liked men across the nation.
But if you listen long enough to a racist GOP pundit with a poor track record on civil rights, you would think he was their national hero. That was decidedly not the case. Instead, the aforementioned talking heads will usually take a quote from MLK, typically out of context, and use it as a means to fool the ignorant or naive into thinking they’re progressive while their track records tell a different story.
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One of 2021’s latest entities guilty of this phenomenon is the NFL. Yes, the same NFL that essentially ran Colin Kaepernick out of the league for using his platform to protest police brutality and injustice, felt no shame in posting a quote from Dr. King on its social media feed on MLK Day.
The NFL shared the quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” which is from King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.”
King was jailed for holding non-violent demonstrations in Birmingham, Ala. in 1963. While behind bars, local clergymen published an open letter calling for “outsiders” (see: King) to seek legal remedies rather than protests. That letter was titled “A Call For Unity.”
The jig sure does sound familiar, doesn’t it? GOP flunkies like Sen. Lindsey Graham are no calling for unity after the Capitol was sacked, and the only unity NFL owners showed was in unfairly blacklisting Kap.
Check out some more brands and people who should keep Dr. King’s words out of their mouth below. But first, let Barack Obama show you how to do this, son.
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Photo: Getty
