Thread by @shengokai

Apropos of conversations about the connections between King and CRT, I point to this passage from King's "The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement," which can be found here:

apa.org/monitor/featur…

In the above, King tasks the APA and the nation's behavioral scientists, to take up systemic inquiry into the nature of how the soul of "White America" has been poisoned by racism. Now, King's generous corpus defines the nature of this poison, so I won't cover it here.

However, what is important to note is the following from King wherein he presents the awakening of the Black people to consciousness of the nature of their oppression which he describes as "systemic."

King's use of "systemic" here positions the systemic nature of racism as the cause not only of racist oppression, but as organizing the responses of white society to the needs of Black people. King likewise dispenses with any treatment of racism as "superficial prejudice."

The systemic nature of racism, while put in language in this piece presented to a collection of academics, is present throughout all of King's major writings. "Black Power," for example, outlines the systemic nature of racism as effecting how political power can be wielded.

More than that, King's use of systemic racism in the above, when read back into his critique of the "white moderate" and his critique of the American response to non-violent protest and riots also serves to align King's work with CRT's challenge to liberalism.

If we read this piece with "The Other America," the consequences of systemic racism are laid bare as they serve to structure the very nature of being Black in America. That is, the enduring systemic structures of racism serve as an animating force for America itself.

There are many more examples of King's anticipation and even prediction of CRT or something like it, but that's not the point here.

The point here is that positioning King as "anti-CRT" is both an ahistorical and disingenuous reading of King's work.

Further, perpetuating the lie that King would've been opposed to CRT reveals a fundamental failure to, you guessed it, do the FUCKING reading. So yeah, next time someone espouses a "colorblind" or "anti-CRT" King, take it as a sigh they don't know what the FUCK they're on about.