King on What the Negro Wants
Thomas Allen
In his speech, “Where Do We Go from Here?” (1967), I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World (James Washington, ed., Harper Collins Publishers, 1986, 1982), Martin Luther King, Jr., presents what the Negro desiderates. A discussion of some of King’s demands follows.
Most conservatives claim that King is an archconservative. Many believe that he is the greatest conservative ever. Some have even deified him. Therefore, these conservatives should not only agree with all the demands of the greatest conservative ever, but they should also ardently promote them.
Like all integrationists, King blames the poor academic performance of Negroes on segregated schools. He notes, “In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools.”(p. 170.) Although schools have been integrated for half a century and standards have been lowered to accommodate Negroes, they still lag behind Whites by one to three years academically in elementary and even further behind in high school. Whatever the cause of Negroes lagging behind Whites, it has nothing to do with segregation. Does it ever occur to King, conservatives, and other integrationists that the reason that Negroes lag behind Whites is genetics and not segregation?
(In “The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousness” [1960] of the same book, King describes the high academic achievements that Negroes had accomplished during the Jim Crow Era [p. 64-65], which contradicts much of the agreement of the integrationists. Segregated schools had not held Negroes back academically.)
King declares that Negroes “must no longer be ashamed of being black.” (p. 170.) At least the Negro has overcome this problem. The self-esteem of the typical Negro far exceeds that of the typical White.
Moreover, King complains that the infant mortality rate of Blacks is significantly higher than White infant mortality rate (p. 170). Today, the leading cause of death of Negro infants is abortion. Although in this speech, King does not mention abortion; most likely, today, he would support abortion without restrictions because that is the progressive thing to do.
King was ahead of his time in changing and corrupting language. He favored eliminating negative connotations with “black” and positive connotations with “white” (pp. 170-171). Thus, King was woke decades before wokeism became the guiding principle of the country.
Continuing in his speech, King complains that the Negro contribution to American life has been ignored (p. 171). Black history month solved this problem. For a whole month, America is saturated with minor contributions of Negroes that make the work of Washington, Jefferson, and the other founding fathers pale into insignificance.
Next, King says, “‘Yes, I [the Negro] was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.’” Contrary to what King may believe, the Bible does not condemn slavery or consider it a sin. Jesus never commanded that slaves be emancipated. Neither did Paul nor Peter. On the contrary, both Paul and Peter instructed slaves to be faithful to their masters.
Further, King complains about the lack of power that Negroes have (pp. 171-172). Negroes have overcome their lack of power. Today, they can bring down almost any White public figure by accusing him of being a racist, which now has at least 800 definitions, even without proof. Moreover, they have trained Whites to hate themselves so much that they will attack Whites who tell the truth about Negroes and smear them as “racists.”
Continuing, King says, “The problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power.” (p. 172) Negro ghettoes are located in large cities, many of which Negroes govern. Moreover, these cities receive large influxes of federal grant money. For the most part, Negro ghettoes in these Negro governed cities are worse today than they were under Jim Crow when Negroes presumably had no power. Furthermore, the rest of these cities have deteriorated — this deterioration is directly proportional to the power of the Negro, just as it was in the South during Reconstruction.
Whatever the cause of the plight of the Negro during the Jim Crow Era, it had nothing to do with his lack of power. Where the Negro has had power, the condition of the Negro has not noticeably improved — except for those who govern and their cronies.
Then, King says “We must develop a program that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income.” (p. 173.) Consequently, since King is the greatest conservative ever, a guaranteed annual income is conservatism and not progressivism. All these King-worshiping conservatives are blaspheming their lord if they do not support and promote a guaranteed annual income. When are these conservatives going to institute and implement their lord’s demand for a guaranteed annual income?
Continuing with his speech, King argues for a war on poverty, which President Johnson gave him and every president has since continued (p. 174). (Since archconservative King advocated a war on poverty, then all good conservatives must fervently support the federal government’s war on poverty, the Constitution notwithstanding.) The country has been at war with poverty for 60 years and has little to show for it other than the squandering of trillions of dollars.
(In “The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousness” [1960] of the same book, King describes how Negroes were making enormous advances economically during the Jim Crow Era [p. 65]. And, they were doing so by their own efforts and merit, unlike today where their advancement depends mostly on handouts and governmental coercion such as affirmative action, quotas, set-asides, etc.)
Nevertheless, if all the noncash welfare benefits are considered, many of those identified as paupers live better than many taxpaying wage earners. Only a few homeless people are truly paupers. So, in this sense, the war has been won.
When King gave this speech in 1967, he said that riots were futile because “the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard and, finally, the army to call on—all of which are predominantly white.” (p. 175.) Today, many local police forces are predominately nonwhite — and the State police, National Guard, and the army are becoming ever more nonwhite. Most of the time, even Whites side with the Negro rioters. Consequently, riots can be and have been more effective in the twenty-first century than in the 1960s at cowardizing Whites into surrendering to Negro demands.
One of the main reasons that King opposed a violent revolt by Negroes was that he believed that the Negro could not win such a revolt (p. 175). He was probably right. However, through propaganda, guile, threats, protests, and occasionally riots, the Negro could and finally did defeat the White man. Thus, following King’s advice, the Negro has not only defeated the White man; with the aid of self-hating Whites, the Negro is also well on his way to annihilating the White race.
Although King expressed a great desire for love and disdain for hate in his speech (pp. 175-176), his movement has led to a great deal of hatred toward Whites. This hatred is concealed in crime statistics of violent Negroes crimes perpetrated against Whites (see “The Dirty War: America’s Race War” by Thomas Allen). Worse, King’s movement has led to the hatred of White realists and White separatists by White albusphobes and Whites racial nihilists.
Like all good conservatives, King blames capitalism for poverty (p. 176). He favors an economic system between communism and capitalism — a blend of the two, which is what the country has today. Although he does not use the terms, what King is advocating is democratic welfare-state fascism, which is called democratic socialism in Europe. All good King-worshiping conservatives should support King’s economic philosophy.
Moreover, King opposed foreign investments because they exploited poor countries and led to the use of military force to protect foreign investments (p. 177). So far, King’s followers have failed to eliminate foreign investments and the concomitant wars. (Neoconservatives and establishment conservatives, who are the most ardent worshipers of King, are the most warmongering conservatives. Why have they ignored their god on this point?)
Also, in “Facing the Challenge of a New Age” (1957) of the same book, King writes:
There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth dying for; it is worth losing a job; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self-respect. Once more every Negro must be able to cry out with his forefathers: “Before I'll be a slave, I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Father and be saved.” (p. 27.)
Many of King’s followers have ignored his teachings about freedom. Many Negroes have enslaved themselves to the government via the welfare state. They prefer loafing in comfort with cradle-to-grave care to living free as a pauper.
Negroes have not gotten everything that King claimed that they wanted, such as a guaranteed annual income, although the welfare state comes close to it. In some respects, they have gotten more than they thought possible, such as getting Whites to genocide themselves. (Nevertheless, White supremacy will continue to exist long after the White race becomes extinct because White supremacy is so powerful that it will continue to dominate the world forever. Besides, Negroes cannot let White supremacy die because then they will have to accept responsibility for their failures instead of blaming Whites for their failures.)
Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Coley Allen.
