I Was Born Into A World Different Than This One
It shocks me to recall that I was born into a world in which Martin Luther King Jr. still drew breath. I, for a brief time, lived in a world where Robert F. Kennedy was making his run to become the President of the United States. It was a world in which people’s conceptions of what music could be was challenged with each new Beatles album, a time where athletes not merely took a knee but raised a fist, where Muhammed Ali took on the draft board and sacrificed his career for his principles. The world was being shaped by personalities too big to be ignored.
Where are such people today? Are they no longer being born? Or are they being sorted out by a machine that demands obedience and conformity instead of genius and integrity?
The Beatles for a short time so shook the world that record companies were willing to sign most anyone in the hopes of finding the next big thing, until at last they decided it would be far easier to create the next big thing. For a while they gave emerging artists the time and the support they needed to develop, but eventually they found it less risky to fashion what they believed would be popular bands and trends and threw a bunch of money into marketing said performers and trends.
Instead of an organic Angela Davis capturing the political sentiment of the people, today we are given a Kamala Harris. We are given politicians and artists that have been deemed by the establishment safe from making any real change. Safer for the establishment, but what an incredible step down in terms of intellectual, moral, and visionary content.
Where today might you find the equivalent of a Martin Luther King Jr. or an Erich Fromm? Never again will you see one on corporate media. Never again will you see a Mike Royko earning a comfortable living revealing the hypocrisy and selfishness of those in power. Those days have passed.
Look to the fringes if you want to see the modern-day equivalent of MLK. Though of lesser standing, Reverend Barber walks in MLK’s footsteps. Look to the fringes if you want to see the next someone who rankles the establishment leaders, Jimmy Dore or Lee Camp or Richard Medhurst. Look further and further to the fringes as social media platforms continue to demonetize, suppress, and outright ban those who seek to hold the powerful to account.
Look to the periphery if you are looking for the new generation of great leaders, profound thinkers, people of integrity. The establishment media will not go near them and they will not debase themselves to do what is necessary to curry favor with power. Like oil and water, they will not mix.
If you think the world today is in need of an MLK or similar leader, it is incumbent upon you to seek them out, because the media will not bring them to you. The media will try to hide them from you, and if they are unable to do that they will slander them and try to get you to hate and fear them. Facebook will suppress them and give you Ben Shapiro. Twitter will censor them and give you Brooklyn Dad. They trust no one they cannot buy, trust no one who is not willing to get rich and bask in the glow of corporate media’s accolades.
The system will hide from you true feminists and have you admire women who support the patriarchy while using all the right words. The only people of color they will hold up will be those who support colonialism and the suppression of people of color around the world.
The media is not fertile ground for the sort of people the world so sorely needs right now. It will require extra tending on the part of all of us if they are to grow to fruition.