Martin Luther King Knew That There’s Nothing Peaceful About Nonviolence If You’re Doing It Right
Establishment pundits love to cite Martin Luther King as a way to delegitimize militant protests and shame unruly protesters. But King wasn’t a proponent of passive, compliant protest — to him, nonviolent action was about forging a powerful collective force that could coerce ruling elites into conceding to demands for justice.
Martin Luther King Jr addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the August 28, 1963, march on Washington, DC.
Political repression in the United States is at once spectacular and banal. We’ve seen both in recent weeks, as militarized police forces conduct counterinsurgency campaigns against US civilians and brutality is paired with calls for protesters to remain peaceful.
When ruling elites call for peace, they are demanding docility. When they cynically cite decontextualized Martin Luther King Jr quotes and invoke the rights of “peaceful protesters” while denouncing actually existing protests, they announce that no effective protest will ever be peaceful enough to meet their approval. Ruling elites, pundits, and police use the rhetoric of nonviolence to discipline protesters and shift responsibility for state violence onto its victims.
We shouldn’t fall into their trap. There’s nothing peaceful about nonviolence if you’re doing it right.
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