On Monday and Tuesday, I posted three different Martin Luther King Jr. quotes in reaction to the violence taking place in Baltimore. You can see those posts here, here and here.
That according to comedian W. Kamau Bell is verboten:
"To help white people to find new ways to talk about racism we have to ban them from saying the words 'Martin', 'Luther', 'King', & 'junior'," he tweeted. The tweet received support, but was later shredded by critics.
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This isn't the first time Bell has suggested silencing white people. In 2013, Bell said white people --
especially white journalists -- should simply shut up about race because in his view, it's not their job to discuss the issue.
"The worst thing to say to a person of color is, ‘I don’t think that’s racist,’" he said. "I don’t think that’s your area. You can have an opinion but I don’t think you are the final word. That’s what’s missing, white people. You’ve got a lot of jobs, but should not have the ‘I know what’s racist’ job. I know what’s imperialism – that’s your job.”
Bell was not the only Hollywood liberal to suggest white people be banned from mentioning King. Mark Ruffalo, the actor who plays Bruce Banner in the upcoming Avengers movie, said on Twitter that whites should stop mentioning Martin Luther King and the riots in Baltimore.
"Dear White America: beautifully written," he said. "Please Stop Talking About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Baltimore 'Riots'." His tweet included a link to an article at the far-left wing Daily Kos that said the "killing of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man who was a victim of racial profiling and harassment by police, is the proximate cause" of the riots in Baltimore.
Gray, the Washington Post said, was in custody so often that officers said they could identify him by name from surveillance video. His injuries, the Post added, remain the subject of local and federal investigations, but some reports claim he had spinal and neck surgery a week before his final run-in with officers. Nevertheless, the Post said, Gray was never placed in a seat belt and made multiple requests for medical attention.
"Perhaps it would be best if most Americans simply took Dr. King out of their mouths, defaulting to different wisdom as offered by other people, for they are not really interested in understanding the true power of Brother Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s radical vision and truth-telling about white supremacy and class inequality in America," said the Daily Kos, ending the line with a question mark. The meaning of the piece, is quite clear. White people should just shut up and let looters destroy Baltimore. To do otherwise would be racist.
Increasingly today, people are being told to shut up, to be quiet, to pipe down, or my personal favorite, to tone things down, to dial things back.
Apparently, Bell and Ruffalo and the Daily Kos, knowing that what was happening in Baltimore doesn't square well with the non-violent teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., would rather not be reminded of the fact and people who do the reminding need to shut up, need to tone it down, need to dial it back.
It's become the way of the world today.
Truth is so damned offensive. And those who speak truth should shut the hell up.
To which I say simply... no.
Hell. No.
Never.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Bell, Mr. Ruffalo, you folks at the Daily Kos and anyone else so easily offended by the expression of truth.
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