[imc-ontario-stories] ZNet Commentary: Using MLK to Keep You in Your Place

[Kevin Smith]

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>
>ZNet Commentary
>Using MLK to Keep You in Your Place March 25, 2002
>By Cynthia Peters
>
>There are all sorts of rationalizations people will offer for not 
>envisioning a better future. "It's utopian," some will say. "You're 
>dreaming. The best we can do is make small improvements on what we've got."
>
>"Why try to create a blueprint for what a better society will look like? 
>Shouldn't we let the process of social change determine what the future 
>looks like?"
>
>"It makes you look crazy," still others will say. "We're so far away from 
>what you envision, that it makes you look hopelessly ungrounded in reality."
>
>On January 21, 2002, Martin Luther King Day, the Boston Globe came up with 
>yet another reason why we should forego our dreams. To put it simply: 
>we're not capable.
>
>To "honor" Martin Luther King, the Globe took out a full-page ad. They 
>divided the page into two columns, one with the heading "Martin Luther 
>King, Jr.," the other with the heading "Most People."
>
>Under the former, the Globe reprinted King's famous "I have a dream 
>speech," in which he imagines a day when the "sons of former slaves and 
>the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the 
>table of brotherhood"; when his four children will not be "judged by the 
>color of their skin, but the content of their character"; when "little 
>black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with the 
>little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."
>
>The speech resonates with dignity, hope and vision. But the Globe's point 
>isn't to remind us of King's desire to one day see the dismantling of 
>race, class and gender boundaries, and to invite us to share in that 
>dream. No. The point is more to contrast King's magnificent dream to the 
>meager dreams of the rest of us.
>
>Under the heading "Most People," the Globe lists what it imagines our 
>dreams to be. "Most People" means you and me, of course, the rest of us, 
>those of us who are not Martin Luther King. What are our dreams? They are 
>apparently limited to three: winning the lottery, owning a nice home and a 
>nice car, and becoming a movie star.
>
>I'm not sure where the Globe gets its information. Did they send out a 
>special investigative team to ask "most people" what they dream of? Or did 
>they peruse their own product, which is majority advertising with content 
>designed to be favorable to the advertisers?
>
>In other words, do Automotive, Real Estate, Home, and Travel warrant their 
>own sections and voluminous pages because "most people" are constantly out 
>buying cars, homes, furnishings, and vacations?
>
>Or do they warrant their own sections because that's the best way to sell 
>advertising space? What better venue for car ads than a whole section of 
>the newspaper dedicated to reporting on -- what? -- people driving cars!
>
>What better way to entice real estate ads than sending journalists out to 
>write balanced stories about the joys of homeownership, fixer-upper tips 
>and tricks, and strategies for procuring mortgages.
>
>Not sure it really matters what kind of kitchen gadgets you own? Think 
>again. The paper reports extensively on the relative merits of all sorts 
>of consumer goods, doing a lot of free legwork for the advertisers who now 
>don't have to justify their promotion of consumerism, but can focus 
>instead on imprinting their particular brand on your brain.
>
>What about the news sections? Don't they help us understand the world so 
>that we can more responsibly participate in it? Not likely.
>
>The spectrum of debate offered through the mainstream media is narrow; 
>Defense Department press releases are quoted as fact; mainstream 
>institutions -- particularly the marketplace -- are immovable, inevitable, 
>untouchable. You don't hear too much about human agency in the front page; 
>subjectivity is reserved for the "Home" section, where you can find 
>full-page spreads on window treatments. The newspaper invites us to make 
>choices about where to take our vacation, which car to buy, and which 
>recipes to sample.
>
>Let's face it. The Globe -- as well as every other mainstream media outlet 
>-- takes its mission of being user-friendly to advertisers very seriously. 
>What better way to help us feel responsive and accepting of the legions of 
>ladies' underwear ads than to convince us that we don't think about 
>anything else!
>
>Martin Luther King's birthday provides a special opportunity to reinforce 
>the directive that our mission in life is to be consumers; that the only 
>outlet for active engaged minds is decisionmaking in the marketplace; and 
>that dreams revolve around picking the right lottery number, gaining 
>personal fame, and owning high-priced commodities.
>
>Contrasting his dream with "most people's" turns MLK's vision into a 
>weapon -- a marketing tool to convince us that personal ego trips and 
>material gain represent the limits of our collective imagination.
>
>In fact, the Globe ad tells us nothing about "most people's" dreams, but 
>it says a lot about how hard elites work to keep us in our place. Look 
>what they're up against, after all -- real people, most of whom have a 
>moral center, value generosity, and care very deeply about realizing 
>mostly non-market dreams.
>
>The custodians and nurse's aids in the Adult Basic Education class I teach 
>in Boston's big public hospital are passionate about things like being 
>able to adequately support their families, sending their kids to college, 
>knowing their neighbors, finding work that is less tiring, draining and 
>demeaning, addressing discrimination on the job, and giving back to their 
>communities through volunteer work.
>
>These are the true "most people" -- in addition to you, me, and just about 
>anyone we know. Our dreams actually have a great deal in common with 
>Martin Luther King's, and they have very little to do with buying things, 
>which is why corporate interests work so hard to convince us otherwise.