»» Columnists

What Would MLK Do?

by Rachel Sklar | 12:59 pm, January 18th, 2010

» 13 comments

What would Martin Luther King say about the world today? That question is asked every year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on the third Monday in January, honoring Dr. King’s birthday of January 15th. Had he lived, he would have just turned 81. Alas, he did not, so we are left to wonder: What would he think? What would he do? Would he have supported Barack Obama? What would he think of Sarah Palin, Fox News, The Clintons, The Bushes, Harry Reid? Would he care about Susan Boyle and Adam Lambert? And what would he think of this crazy new media world? Most importantly, would we find him on….Twitter?

Baratunde Thurston wonders just that at VanityFair.com:

At this time every year, commentators across the United States engage in an exercise I’ll call Hypothetical King, in which we try to imagine what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say about the war in Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, or Mo’Nique winning best supporting actress for Precious at the Golden Globes. We extrapolate from his words and deeds and hope we’re right but can never be sure.

Then he goes on to imagine — in great detail — how Dr. King would have used the social networking site. Scoffers, hold your fire — it’s not a silly exercise, by a long shot. Instead, what Thurston does is skillfully demonstrate — and illustrate — just how versatile and useful that simple 140-character platform is for hosting conversations, engaging dissent, planning action, and displaying leadership. Really.

Thurston is a comedian — he hails from The Onion — but he also calls himself a “Vigilante Pundit” and the two are merged rather perfectly here, as he manages to be hilarious, yet strangely poignant about King, his lifetime, his peers, and his legacy. He also manages to really showcase just what kind of tool Twitter can be — especially in the hands of a leader like that. (It also evinces a far deeper
understanding of the versatility and power of Twitter as a platform, which so escaped his VF colleague Vanessa Grigoriadis earlier this month.) His piece is great. Read it.

In other MLK-and-social-media news, variations on “Martin Luther King” are in today’s top searches on both Google and Twitter, especially searches for “martin luther king quotes,” “i have a dream speech,” and “martin luther king jr i have a dream speech.” Accordingly, we have obliged. Full video of his famous speech is below, and no less inspiring or meaningful today. And you can tweet that.

Related:
What Would Martin Luther King Make of Twitter? [Vanity Fair]
Ten Martin Luther King Jr. quotes [Christian Science Monitor]
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Message Lives On [ABC News]
Lessons in ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ [Austin-American Statesman]
Full ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ [The Atlantic]
The 10 Most Mantastic Moments in Black History [Asylum]

disgusted

Get da MONEY an’ Runny Run Run! Guess that’ll put me in the “camp” with Rush and da Rev!
timzank

My guess is, because Dr. King believed in hard work, fair treatment, honesty and integrity he’d be miles away from anything having to do with this administration.
Pat Doherty

Who knows what Martin Luther King Jr would have thought? I have noticed whenever someone puts out a piece like this the deceased figure tends to support whatever the writer believes.
The Real Royal King

I’ve often wondered what Voltaire would think about the Super Bowl half-time show.
Fidoohki

To be a honest I couldn’t say. He’d probably be embaressed and upset with the way the world is now and how
people are treated in it. He’d probably be attacked by the left immediately on account he’d be a threat to their
minority voting block.
Puter Boi

I have often wondered how Loretta Lynn would react if she knew that Rachel Sklar stole her hair. I know Loretta isn’t dead….but still….I wonder…
TfT

What would he think about Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann? I note Rachel didn’t mention MSNBC…funny that. “All the teabaggers are white”. Of all the networks, MSNBC is the biggest race baiters out there, always talking about black and white and never character.
Fidoohki

Agreed TfT.
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

Am I the only one who has noticed that Rachel seems to be completely fixated on Twitter? It seems every one of her posts has to mention something with that over-rated social platform. Look, I understand everyone and every industry is on Twitter but its true relevance is minimal. Yes, things like the Haitian crisis and the Iranian election aftermath had very positive uses for it, but the overwhelming majority of it is overrated. Reducing thoughts on Dr. King to him “tweeting” is trivializing.
Thrasher

I hate tired articles like these…Nobody speaks for MLK ….Please enough of this shit…
the visionary

@ Martini
to be fair, the last couple rachel articles i remember reading have been on the conan/leno/nbc dealio but maybe i missed others. while i understand and somewhat agree with your annoyance at the twitter fixation its an interesting new medium. we’ll see where it leads…
http://www.nukethefridge.com MartiniShark

Maybe why I always notice is because I find Twitter tedious and vastly over played. Everyone talks about and mentions it but there select few times it has proven to be anything close to useful. Basically like this piece, it seems like it gets mentioned often yet contributes nothing of consequence.
PureFreedom

MLK was a Republican, He saw more opportunities for equal rights in that party. The left have been bamboozling the black community for years and years thinking they are helping them, but actually extending and pushing welfare and building more nanny state run platforms it has hurt the black community for all the these years…

Until Black America will see what MLK saw and wake up… it will never change. There is choice!

Why is it that white people can make this choice belonging to any party they want too, but Blacks have to be Democrats or they are traitors or looked down a pone?