this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026

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People forget that Dr. King's real life was filled with threats, violence & injuries, not speeches and "dreams." (cdn.masto.host)

submitted 6 days ago by JazzyKindaFella@zirk.us to c/news@beehaw.org

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

People forget that Dr. King's real life was filled with threats, violence & injuries, not speeches and "dreams."

Dr. King would've been 88 this past Friday.

“ When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of #racism , materialism, & militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

#MLK @blackvoices @democracy #USA @news #AI #ICE #Minnesota #immigration #Minneapolis #Imperialism #socialmedia #mastodon #war #US #love

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[–] tae_glas@slrpnk.net 59 points 6 days ago (4 children)

he would have been 97 or so if he were alive today, it really brings home how recent it was.

the civil rights movement happened within my parents' lifetimes, but it's so often spoken about as though it were ages ago & completely out of living memory (to both minimise it & pretend that society's totally different now 💔)

[–] Vegan_Joe@piefed.world 34 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

This really hit home to me when I was a teenager and a colleague at work started talking about the famous demonstrations she attended. She was probably 60, but looked and acted 40, which made it especially jarring.

A similar thing happened when I visited the Martin Luther King Jr national museum in Atlanta. They have pictures and items scattered throughout, and as we were browsing, an older man was nearby excitedly talking about each of the people in the exhibit on a personal level. As it turned out, he was friends with all of them. It made it feel bizarre, because we walked into a history museum, and left with it feeling too recent to be history.

The final shock for me was when my mom casually mentioned that her elementary School was segregated! My siblings and I were shaken. She acted like it was something we should have already known, and maybe we should have already pieced that together when analyzing the time frames. The problem was that the Civil Rights movements in my mind were compartmentalized in the History section.

[–] superflippy@mastodon.xyz 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@Vegan_Joe My MIL occasionally shares stories about being a teen during Jim Crow. When she went to concerts, there were separate sections for the black & white kids to keep them from dancing together.

[–] Vegan_Joe@piefed.world 16 points 6 days ago

A side topic, but this pulls to mind the gay rights movement in my lifetime. It always felt like an extension to the civil Rights movement. Which is all the more concerning with the current rhetoric around gender and sexuality.

[–] rollin@piefed.social 20 points 6 days ago

DOB January 15, 1929 so yes you're right about how old he would be today (OP said 88)

[–] protist@mander.xyz 10 points 6 days ago

My grandmother was born in 1922, and there were people who had been slaves and people who had been slaveholders still around for her entire childhood in the US south

[–] superflippy@mastodon.xyz 2 points 6 days ago

@tae_glas @JazzyKindaFella My mom said yesterday at church the priest asked how many people there remembered MLK’s assassination, and many people raised their hands.

[–] MyOpinion@lemmy.myserv.one 32 points 6 days ago (3 children)

White supremacists are evil trash that pollute this country.

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 20 points 6 days ago

They are. And they are also useful idiots for the billionaire oligarchs which rule it.

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 10 points 6 days ago

The whole damn world I'd say.

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net -5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Race isn’t real and if you think it is you’re just as bad.

[–] androgynouscloudmoon@slrpnk.net 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Race isn't real but the effects of enforcing it are, what a weird comment this is

[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 4 points 6 days ago

And the lasting effects even once it stops being actively enforced

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net -3 points 5 days ago

Well that’s just obvious and not really remarkable unlike the acceptance (or rejection) of ‘race’ as an idea, making your comment weirder. Weird on, weirdo!

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You’re trying to say that race is not like species because all humans are sexually compatible. Semantically your argument makes sense but historically the idea that race doesn’t matter is absurd. Race basically means those people over there in the other tribe historically.

It’s why we have china killing Tibetans and the Juigars, the civil war in Rwanda and Sudan…

To outsiders these people all look Chinese or African, but racism is very real.

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I’m not. I’m saying there is zero way to prove race is a thing. What everyone attributes to race is culture and phenotype. There is nothing inherent in any person that separates them categorically from any other on a scale as large as that. Belief in ’race’ is racism. Prove me wrong… Also, racism makes it matter and it matters a lot. It’s just a social construct though and constructs are not ‘real’ much like gender.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Belief in ’race’ is racism. Prove me wrong…

Well your claim is inherently flawed. "Race" isn't something a person believes in, it's an observation of what is essentially human tribalism throughout history. Even if it were a thing to believe in, racism itself isn't the belief in race, but the belief that different races (or tribes) of people are inherently worse than others in some ways.

In other words, your statement is similar to the statement "Belief in 'sex' is sexism", which is hilariously wrong, and of course is predicated on the idea that people "believe" in these things.

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

How about your top 10 characteristics that are based on race?

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Are you responding to the right person? Because if you intended to reply with that, then clearly your reading comprehension skills match your critical thinking skills.

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the ad hominem instead of an answer.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 0 points 4 days ago

You asked me a question wholly irrelevant to my comment to bait out some kind of answer you can challenge rather than actually responding. Did you expect me to answer your question?

You appear to be allergic to healthy discussion. I'm out.

[–] chemicalprophet@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Your argument is as inherently flawed as the gender argument and for the same reasons. I’m not here to be mansplained to but thank you. The suprematist whites have tried to prove your point for ever. Define race and then tell me how you prove it scientifically or don’t, but I won’t reply to anything else. I do enjoy your willingness to digress and believe you are here in good faith. Thank you, citizen. One race, human race

[–] cecilkorik@piefed.ca 21 points 6 days ago

The civil rights movement never ends, and fighting for civil rights never should've ended. It's required to keep trying to be civilized people, that's how civilization continues, if you don't care about civilization and don't want to have civilization anymore, you can just get a whole bunch of people to stop caring about promoting civil rights, like we have over the last few decades, and this is what civilization failing worldwide looks like.

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Doesn't seem like world news, more american history

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 1 points 4 days ago

Aka something they don't learn in school

[–] nostradamnit@piefed.social 5 points 5 days ago

I you want to know more about the threats and violence, you should read This Non-violent Stuff Will Get You Killed

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

Could someone smarter than me about mastodon and lemmy federation explain to me what it is about this mastodon status that federates into a lemmy community? From @JazzyKindaFella@zirk.us 's profile it just looks like a normal status but then here it is in a specific community that's not even tagged

[–] AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

People also forget his tactics were largely ineffective. Only an armed population managed to force Congress to appease for equalier rigths.

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 11 points 6 days ago

You need both. Discourse without teeth is ignored, and violence without a face to negotiate achieves little. You need both and reasonably separated, so that people turn to the demands of discourse in fear of what violence might do if they don't.

[–] Canis_76@feddit.nl -1 points 5 days ago

...and bitches! Didn't forget the bitches!