MLK & Jesus: A Lesson in Historical Whitewashing

 

"History is written by the victors."  --- Winston Churchill

 "The victor writes the history books." --- Unknown

However you word it & whomever you attribute it to, this quote sadly has stood the test of time, proving itself accurate from Biblical times through the new millennium to the present day.  Facts, those annoying little inconvenient tidbits of truth, have never been allowed to stand in the way of a good old dumbed-down narrative, be it religious, patriotic or otherwise. Take the parallel life trajectories of Martin Luther King and Jesus Christ, for instance:  Both men used their lives to spread a message--unpopular at the time--of love, acceptance & humility; of helping the outcast & living simple lives of service while working toward a more fair & just world.  By the end both men knew they would be killed for these teachings.  But it's what happened in the wake of their tragic deaths that is truly noteworthy.

As long as Christ and King stayed in their lanes (performing "miracles" & discussing race relations, respectively) society tolerated them.  But as soon as they showed the least bit of anti-establishment sentiment & attempted to tackle larger issues--namely organized greed by those in power--it was a wrap. 

Takedown of Dr. King by the NY Times (April 7, 1967)

MLK's flock (including liberal publications) turned on him after his April 4th, 1967, anti-Vietnam War speech, which he gave exactly one year to the day before his assassination.  Even his most ardent supporters denounced him in long rambling editorials in the liberal media, accusing him of stepping outside his wheelhouse & alienating his supporter base.  "Stick to race relations" he was told in no uncertain terms.  The madding crowd in Jesus' story came for Him after He angrily flipped a table over inside a Jewish temple on the highest Holiest day of Passover, protesting the greed of religious leaders who were taking money in exchange for prayers & blessings (a practice known simply as "tithing" today).  This was the only documented show of "human" emotion He ever displayed & He knew it would lead to His death, as merely being caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath could get you stoned to death in those days.  Meanwhile MLK's last speech referenced the Good Samaritan parable from the New Testamrent & alluded strongly to his impending death (emphasis mine):

"We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life – longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And so I'm happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

After finishing this speech King stumbled to the side of the stage & collapsed, exhausted.  He'd been under the weather all day & the weather itself was chaotic & stormy.  The following morning, April 4th, 1968, he would be shot dead on his hotel balcony.  At the time he was conducting a Poor People's Campaign in Tennessee similar to Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition that brought together poor white Appalachians, Puerto Ricans & inner city Blacks on the basis of their shared class struggles.  Fred Hampton of course was cut down by 91 police bullets while he slept after being drugged by a police informant.

Shortly before Jesus walked to the cross he began to sweat blood, a condition known as Hematidrosis--an extremely rare phenomenon that happens when a terrified person knows their death is imminent.  Only a few cases have ever been reported in the medical literature with His being among them.  This makes His torture & death that much sadder in my mind, as it means He was acutely aware of what was to come. 

The Aftermath

The MLK you never knew  🖤

In the cases of both MLK & Jesus, The Powers That Be seem to have said "Whoa, maybe we went too far in killing these men.  Now we look like the baddies!  Shit, we'd better do something... give the people something to soothe their anger so they don't revolt.  I know!  We'll create a religion named after Jesus/give MLK a national holiday!   Neither one is here to actually ENJOY these things, but better late than never, right? We just have to tone down the rhetoric & sanitize the message, like, a LOT.  Can't have the People getting any big ideas & doing things to interfere with our little "system." And thus they got together to draft THEE Holy Bible and create the simpleton soundbites that would play every MLK Day for all eternity.  (By "they" I don't mean some shadowy illuminati but people from the same organizations that assassinated these men--religious men in Jesus' time and the FBI/CIA in King's time).

Both Christ and King were a threat to the very profitable systems (organized religion and the military-industrial complex) that require the exploitation of human beings for their very existence.  These systems operate on social hierarchies & economic inequality, thus anyone who gains a following while denouncing them becomes a threat that must be neutralized.  Not just the person but the MESSAGE itself.  And when these men were killed, their complex, inspiring, dangerous messages were distilled down to overly simplified 4 and 5-word cliche soundbites by the people who killed them:  namely, "I have a dream" and "Jesus died for your sins."   

You'll never hear excerpts* from King's arresting anti-Vietnam speech or his quotes about how capitalism is as "evil as racism" on the national holiday named in his honor, and that's by design.  (And it's also by design that Fred Hampton, Malcolm X and the other dead Black revolutionaries with tactics very different from but complementary to King are purposefully not commemorated by our government, and that the Black Panthers are painted as the minority equivalent to the KKK when they were neither Black separatists nor supremacists). 

Likewise, you'll almost never hear the real reason Jesus was murdered in YOUR church or any other place of worship because He was protesting religious leaders of temples & churches when he was killed.  That would be bad for business.  He had very few kind words to say about church during his brief life, yet "Christians" today base so much of their identity on attending church & praying/worshiping in public--another practice Jesus loathed and warned us against.  The cognitive dissonance is too strong so they stick to cliches like "Jesus died for your sins," telling us egregious lies like "even newborn babies are born sinners".  (Ironically, or perhaps predictably, a church was built over the site where Jesus was tortured and killed--the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  How's that for morbid).

These messages are intended to induce guilt/fear & keep you coming back through their doors & emptying your pockets into the collection plates indefinitely because you can never be free of sin as long as you reside in this human body.  These fear-based sermons are not without real psychological & social harms, reinforcing inequality between the races & sexes while driving parents to abuse their kids & the mentally ill to "mercifully kill" theirs to save them from the clutches of Satan like Andrea Yates did when she drowned her 5 children in the bathtub to spare them an eternity in Hell.  

In terms of greed, what today's Christian churches do is many times worse than the Jewish temples & synagogues of Jesus' day because the scale is so much greater:  from the megachurches to the televangelists to the "prosperity gospel,"  these things are the antithesis of everything Christ stood for, plus they're doing it in His name.  

Assange vs. the U.S.:  a modern David vs. Goliath story?

Prediction:

If Julian Assange dies in prison in the coming months or years, his message too will be distilled down to an oversimplified soundbite like "Free speech is vital for democracy."  All the highly-specific critiques he made about individuals, political parties, capitalism, the military-industrial complex, orgs like the CIA, corporations like Google & Facebook, nations like the USA & Britain and more will be conveniently memoryholed by the media, which is owned by a handful of about 6 billionaires with a vested interest in shutting him and others like him up.  Ditto every other freedom fighter currently locked down or on the run worldwide.  They will be crucified in life & remembered warmly but vaguely--always vaguely--in death.  

Keep this in mind before you risk your life for a cause, any cause.  The minute you expire, you hand over the reigns of your legacy to those who control the press & thus, the history books.  (That's assuming you even make enough of a splash to be noticed or written about at all).  Fight instead for your right to a long, healthy and FREE life in which you can enjoy & author your own story--warts & all.  You have a right to be here & to use your life as you see fit, whether that's serving the poor & needy or fucking in the streets while high on jenkem & bananadine.  💩  🍌

And just remember, if they could do it to Jesus & our greatest social/political revolutionaries, they can do it to you.

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Update 6/26/24:  Assange has been FREED in Australia after agreeing to a plea deal with the U.S!  Still, I suspect he won't truly get off Scott-free & will be under surveillance for the rest of his days.  If he so much as types 'Wikilea--' into a Google searchbar the Feds will descend on him like a pack of hungry vultures.  We'll be watching with hopeful eyes & bated breath.

Full speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence"