Cherry picking a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by some individuals is as empty and ill informed as a land acknowledgement that stops at that. You all know who I’m referring to– those who’s only qualifier for MLK is that of nonviolence and something about a dream. Those who have convinced themselves they are not racist but the speed at which they dial 911 on a black person says otherwise. Those who seek to perpetuate the status quo by dictating how he who is oppressed is allowed to speak out against his oppressor. Why has MLK’s extraordinary revolutionary work been reduced to and highly praised for nonviolence? 

There are a few important distinctions that must be made here. First, while MLK maintained that he was vehemently against violence, he was not averse to conflict. In his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ he writes, “nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. . . . I must confess that I am not afraid of the word ‘tension,’” he continues. We must find it curious that oppressors are obsessed with this binary of violent versus nonviolent resistance acts by those who are oppressed. Barbara Deming states, “we must resist whatever gives encouragement to the will to dominate…bullets and bombs are not the only means by which people are killed. If a society denies to certain of its members food or medical attention, or a political voice, the sense of their own worth, the freedom to exercise their talents — this, too, is waging war of a kind.” 

The resistance of oppressed peoples is a product of the violent systems designed to oppress them. Dr. King’s legacy lives on in each and every one of us fighting for freedom and liberation against what he named the Three Evils: racism, poverty, and militarism. The movements for Black and Palestinian liberation have been inextricably linked as they experience just how imperialism is at the forefront of state-sanctioned violence. Parallels have been drawn between the Palestinian and black experiences since the time period of the civil rights movement and continue through today. While the zionist entity effectively exports to the United States and beyond its fatal law enforcement tactics that maintain the oppression and suppression of the Palestinian people, Palestinians offer Ferguson residents advice on overcoming mechanisms of police brutality such as tear gas. While Palestinians including children are imprisoned and tortured without so much as a civil court system, prisoners in Louisiana who are disproportionately black are CURRENTLY subjected to involuntary servitude, while those in power are less motivated to parole and rehabilitate them or even change the very laws that allow such exploitation, as labor so cheap that it’s essentially slavery is the mechanism by which these violent capitalist predators amass their wealth. This systematic, institutionalized, state-sanctioned violence would not be possible without the complicity of the masses that is acquired by way of racism and dehumanization of both Black and Palestinian people alike. Neither the Palestinian nor the Black person is afforded so much as the benefit of doubt against these oppressors, who insist on victim-blaming, insisting to ask, “but was he armed? Did he have drugs on him? Was he affiliated with what I deem to be a terrorist organization by way of its resistance to the society that uplifts me and disenfranchises him and his people?” 

We are up against a ruthless, violent, global capitalist system that has been dedicated to the exploitation of the working class in order to maintain control. What these seemingly all-powerful empires want us to internalize is that these systems are not able to be dismantled. What they have always failed to consider, however,  is that there has always been a people's movement and the people's voice will always be heard. Dr. King’s superpower was mobilizing and inspiring the masses. He and other Civil Rights leaders of the time constructed the movement for black liberation on a foundation of internationalism. MLK made connections between the mutual struggle of black people and Vietnamese people for self determination. As Channing Martinez, a Black leader of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles observed, “Palestine is our Vietnam.” We once again unite against anti-blackness as we stand firmly against war. Our collective spirit is working towards the freedom of all oppressed peoples. It remains formidable and is proof that our strength pours into us from the beating heart of revolutions past, present, and future.

Please keep fighting. Keep showing up. Not only for the people of Palestine, Congo, and Sudan, but for all oppressed people around the world whose struggles are linked to these same few capitalist superpowers built on imperial colonialism, slavery, and exploitation. I urge you to become cognizant of our perceived liberties here in the US and realize we are not free either. We cannot win the fight against the war machine alone in silos. We must come together and harness the power of unity that is rooted in humanity, care, and love for one another– tenants that Dr. King continued to educate the masses on. May every martyr who has been murdered by the blood soaked hands of imperialism be remembered and honored at the hour of liberation. 

None of us are free until all of us are free!!!