Selma and the Co-opting of a Movement

One of the ways to tame a radical movement is to demarginalize it, to make it mainstream, to bring its leaders into power. The cushion of power has a way of making erstwhile radicals very docile and so a movement that was based on ending racism in America now looks like one designed to show racist America how far it has come. Such is the case of the march to remember "bloody Sunday" in Selma today. I am just coming from my barber who told me that he is tired of remembering our racist history. What he would like to see, he said, is an end to the racism itself. However, the bloody event that took place at Selma fifty years ago has now been transformed into a march to remember how far we have come in America, as the speech by President Barack Obama seems to have it. The shameful event has been co-opted by the powerful and the offence of the event has been marginalized even as voting rights are being reversed in this country.

The same thing has happened to the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., who has been given a holiday for people to go around and volunteer, even as the racist cancer that he talked about is still killing unarmed black people in this country. The march in Selma today is a classic case of how to take away the offense from a movement - just make it mainstream and have politicians give the speeches. See how far we have come . . . .