During Martin Luther King’s lifetime he was criticized by conservatives — including the late William F. Buckley — for things like his support of “civil disobedience” — moderate rioting and provocations, as at Selma Bridge, leading to immoderate riots which burned city blocks. Conservatives also objected to federalizing every lunch counter and motel in America, King’s more or less socialist economics, his support for Affirmative Action, the fact that many of his supporters (and close associates) were Communists, and that he supported the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. (It is theoretically possible to frame that as support for “peace,” but King’s position was that the Vietcong and ARVN were non-whites being bullied by the white-dominated U.S. — as with most Vietnam-era “peace” activists, he didn’t give a damn about the former Republic of Vietnam.)
That was the conservative position in 1968, and would have been stronger if they’d known what the FBI knew about King’s private life (relentless adultery, violence against women, and involvement in rape). They also didn’t know about King’s history of plagiarism — including his doctoral dissertation, and to some extent the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
But modern conservatives mostly don’t know about any of that — it would be racist to read the moderately dissident journals where such facts appear — and have settled on thinking of King as somehow a racial moderate based on one line in one speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Of course when he said that, he meant that blacks shouldn’t be judged by whites on that basis — not that whites shouldn’t be judged by blacks.
Scott Greer has an article on his Highly Respected Substack that says Charlie Kirk of TPUSA — no longer anyone’s idea of a cuckservative — is going after the legacy of MLK, at least on the Right.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk plans to take on multicultural America’s most sacred idol: Martin Luther King Jr. The idea naturally inspired a wave of media condemnation of Kirk ahead of the MLK holiday. It’s rare for any public figure to criticize King. Kirk himself praised MLK as a “hero” in years past.
But the TPUSA chief is now “redpilled” on the civil rights activist and his legacy. This is a very positive development. It’s essential that more conservatives critique MLK. The diversity, equity, and inclusion framework is imposed on America in large part due to King’s efforts and our nation’s worship of him. From the civil rights regime to reparations, MLK stands for America’s anti-white mania.
Conservatives try to boil King down to just one sentence: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” To most of the American Right, this statement rebukes affirmative action and anti-white racism. Conservatives claim this proves that MLK was committed to colorblindness. That’s not true at all, as Charlie Kirk now knows. MLK shared the same beliefs as the average DEI commissar.
King’s chief contribution was to push for the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Both were supposedly enacted to eradicate white supremacy from America. Instead, they’ve degraded the republic, curtailed liberty, and enlarged the power of the federal bureaucracy. As the work of Christopher Caldwell and Richard Hanania shows, the Civil Rights Act has been used to end freedom of association, curtail freedom of speech, mandate racial quotas in hiring and university admissions, usher in the tyranny of human resource departments, and made “diversity” the highest goal in American life. The Civil Right Act made the idea of a “colorblind” meritocracy impossible. Affirmative action and DEI are the spawn of it.
MLK Worship Gives Us DEI — Charlie Kirk is right to take on the civil rights idol, January 14, 2024
Well, of course, opposition to the Civil Rights Act, etc. wasn’t always “fringe” in conservative circles. What this may really mean is that people are waking up from Cuckservatism.
If so, some of the credit has to go to us here at VDARE.com, who have been laboring in the vineyards (cottonfields?) for 20+ years.
Here, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, is what we’ve had to say about this in the past.
