Republican lawmakers, aghast at discovering disturbing quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. smacking of critical race theory, are taking steps toward legislation cancelling the holiday. Freshman congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who insists she was King’s “biggest fan” until she read other statements he had made besides the ones frequently quoted from his big hit speech “I Have a Dream.”
“Did you know Martin Luther King Jr. said other things after he said the content of your character is what matters?” she queried reporters on Thursday. “Well, he did, and some of them were disgusting, critical race theory, I-hate-America things that the snugly, Disney caricature of Martin Luther King Jr. we white conservatives have clutched to our collective bosom would never, ever have said.”
Waving a sheet of King quotes she claimed proved King was a Marxist, critical race theorist who dreamed of oppressing innocent white school children, Greene proceeded to read some of the offending statements. “In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Community or Chaos? King said this:”
Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans…These are the deepest causes for contemporary abrasions between the races. Loose and easy language about equality, resonant resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro there is a credibility gap he cannot overlook. He remembers that with each modest advance the white population promptly raises the argument that the Negro has come far enough. Each step forward accents an ever-present tendency to backlash.
After a dramatic pause for effect, Taylor Greene told reporters, “Now if that doesn’t prove that Martin Luther King Jr. had a sinister plan to force white people to learn about systematic racism, then I don’t know what does. We cannot have a holiday celebrating a racist who insists that white people make an effort to comprehend their part in the complex racial history of our country.”