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That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log

That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log Cabin Republicans, not HRC, that won the fight for gay marriage. Advancements for minority groups are better facilitated by building bridges than by burning them.

ceejayoz 5y ago
MLK was regularly accused of burning bridges at the time, as I've demonstrated in the link.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  You posted a Twitter link to one caricature cartoon in an unnamed paper. It is dishonest to say you've "demonstrated" that anything happened "regularly." And it is dishonest to conflate the entirety of the time elapsed - it's indisputably clear who has the better historical reputation. And it is dishonest to suggest that a false allegation of X is moral justification to begin doing X.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    This is pretty trivial to research. https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ > In the 1960s, the vast majority of white people, South and North, disapproved of the movement’s tactics. In a May 1961 Gallup survey, only 22% of Americans approved of what the Freedom Riders were doing, and 57% of Americans said that the “sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses, and other demonstrations by Negroes were hurting the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South.” Just before the March on Washington, Gallup found only 23% of Americans had favorable opinions of the proposed civil rights demonstration. > Lest we see this as Southerners skewing the national sample, in 1964—a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act—a New York Times poll found a majority (57%) of New Yorkers said the civil rights movement had gone too far. “While denying any deep-seated prejudice,” the Times reported, “a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites.” Fifty-four percent of those surveyed felt the movement was going “too fast.” Nearly half said that picketing and demonstrations hurt the Negro cause, and 80% opposed school pairings to promote school desegregation in New York City public schools. "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_R... - are very, very familiar.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; Just because a complaint has been heard before doesn’t mean it’s wrong, indeed it could just as easily mean it’s being said again because it is valid. Dismissing people who have a valid criticism as ‘the status quo’ to be ignored, is by definition divisive. It is the literal opposite of inclusive behavior.
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        > Dismissing people who have a valid criticism... I'm not inclined to assume "BLM is communism!" as valid criticism. Bad faith actors work really hard to derail conversations about racism and police reform; at a certain point, you have to dismiss the same age-old arguments that've been made and debunked at every step along the way. See also: All the anti-miscegenation arguments that turned into anti-gay marriage arguments that turned into anti-trans ones, with basically just a find/replace for the term used. Returning to the point at hand, I believe I've sufficiently demonstrated that MLK's sterling reputation is a more recent phenomenon, and at the time of his actual actions he was being treated and discussed similarly to how many activists are today.
      - jakelazaroff 5y ago
        Isn’t this begging the question? “Dismissing criticism of divisiveness is by definition divisive!”
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    Look up what people thought of MLK at the time. There were no bridges. He described white moderates as a bigger stumbling block to racial justice than the KKK. When he was murdered, he had a disapproval rating of 75% [1]. People accused him of being a communist. The FBI literally attempted to blackmail him into committing suicide [2]. The widespread admiration for him over the past few decades is a result of the shameless whitewashing of his legacy. In that regard, Malcolm X was far more successful — his image has not been co-opted by people to oppose the very ideals for which he fought. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-luther-king-jr-50-years-assassination-donald-trump-disapproval-column/482242002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-lut... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...

ceejayoz 5y ago

MLK was regularly accused of burning bridges at the time, as I've demonstrated in the link.

torstenvl 5y ago
You posted a Twitter link to one caricature cartoon in an unnamed paper. It is dishonest to say you've "demonstrated" that anything happened "regularly." And it is dishonest to conflate the entirety of the time elapsed - it's indisputably clear who has the better historical reputation. And it is dishonest to suggest that a false allegation of X is moral justification to begin doing X.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  This is pretty trivial to research. https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ https://time.com/5099513/martin-luther-king-day-myths/ > In the 1960s, the vast majority of white people, South and North, disapproved of the movement’s tactics. In a May 1961 Gallup survey, only 22% of Americans approved of what the Freedom Riders were doing, and 57% of Americans said that the “sit-ins at lunch counters, freedom buses, and other demonstrations by Negroes were hurting the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South.” Just before the March on Washington, Gallup found only 23% of Americans had favorable opinions of the proposed civil rights demonstration. > Lest we see this as Southerners skewing the national sample, in 1964—a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act—a New York Times poll found a majority (57%) of New Yorkers said the civil rights movement had gone too far. “While denying any deep-seated prejudice,” the Times reported, “a large number of those questioned used the same terms to express their feelings. They spoke of Negroes’ receiving ‘everything on a silver platter’ and ‘reverse discrimination’ against whites.” Fifty-four percent of those surveyed felt the movement was going “too fast.” Nearly half said that picketing and demonstrations hurt the Negro cause, and 80% opposed school pairings to promote school desegregation in New York City public schools. "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Little_R... - are very, very familiar.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > "You're being divisive!" has long been the cry of the status quo. The arguments made against BLM and Defund - including the "it's communism!" stuff; Just because a complaint has been heard before doesn’t mean it’s wrong, indeed it could just as easily mean it’s being said again because it is valid. Dismissing people who have a valid criticism as ‘the status quo’ to be ignored, is by definition divisive. It is the literal opposite of inclusive behavior.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      > Dismissing people who have a valid criticism... I'm not inclined to assume "BLM is communism!" as valid criticism. Bad faith actors work really hard to derail conversations about racism and police reform; at a certain point, you have to dismiss the same age-old arguments that've been made and debunked at every step along the way. See also: All the anti-miscegenation arguments that turned into anti-gay marriage arguments that turned into anti-trans ones, with basically just a find/replace for the term used. Returning to the point at hand, I believe I've sufficiently demonstrated that MLK's sterling reputation is a more recent phenomenon, and at the time of his actual actions he was being treated and discussed similarly to how many activists are today.
    - jakelazaroff 5y ago
      Isn’t this begging the question? “Dismissing criticism of divisiveness is by definition divisive!”
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Look up what people thought of MLK at the time. There were no bridges. He described white moderates as a bigger stumbling block to racial justice than the KKK. When he was murdered, he had a disapproval rating of 75% [1]. People accused him of being a communist. The FBI literally attempted to blackmail him into committing suicide [2]. The widespread admiration for him over the past few decades is a result of the shameless whitewashing of his legacy. In that regard, Malcolm X was far more successful — his image has not been co-opted by people to oppose the very ideals for which he fought. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-luther-king-jr-50-years-assassination-donald-trump-disapproval-column/482242002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/04/martin-lut... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette...