House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried to drag Martin Luther King Jr. into his argument against Critical Race Theory, only to be thoroughly schooled and humiliated by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Republicans have been desperately railing against the study of systemic racism, even by literally passing laws banning the study of America’s racist past in schools. On Monday, McCarthy went even further by invoking King and claiming that King would have opposed Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory goes against everything Martin Luther King Jr. taught us—to not judge others by the color of their skin. The Left is trying to take America backward. pic.twitter.com/ZUx9Wu319Q
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) July 12, 2021
Republicans have been trying to co-opt King as one of their own for decades even though his party affiliation remains a mystery. However, King himself said he voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson in 1964 against arch-conservative Barry Goldwater, who would likely not even be accepted by the current GOP.
They have also outright lied about his teachings while trying to gut the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, both of which King worked tirelessly for in the 1960s.
In response to McCarthy, AOC pointed out that King himself supported educating Americans, particularly white Americans, about systemic racism.
“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 a sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”
– Martin Luther King Jr, 1967 https://t.co/kvNpxyBQe1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 13, 2021
This quote of King’s is not from an early work. It was one of his last words, from “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”
If all sorts of folks who claim “what MLK would do” actually studied his work, they would understand he was a radical. And an anticapitalist, too.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 13, 2021
Martin Luther King, Jr was murdered for confronting white supremacy.
Today GOP who are gutting the very Voting Rights Act King worked for want you to believe he’d support mass disenfranchisement and teaching of racial ignorance.
They should read the books they’re trying to ban.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 13, 2021
So, King would likely support Critical Race Theory and the teaching of it in every school across the country. McCarthy’s pathetic attempt to use King as a prop in the GOP’s war against shining a light on systemic racism and America’s racist past only shows that Republicans are pathetic losers who will say or do anything in their desperation to keep Americans divided and ignorant. It’s the only way their racist party and racist policies can survive.
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