Op-ed: 

What Would Dr. King Say? 

By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on Right Side Patriots Radio
 

“No physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation,” the now released official autopsy report stated. Instead it revealed that George Floyd had “underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease...his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death,” it went on to state. 

And yet they still continue to riot, loot, steal, and set cities on fire, and they started doing so even before the medical examiner had a chance to perform the “priority one” autopsy. Using one man's untimely and unfortunate death as an excuse to not only set their own businesses and homes on fire but to torch government buildings as well, all was being done while in the process of garnering for themselves ill-gotten loot at the expense of one of their own whose memory they have now so dishonored. 

“I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967 speech at Stanford University 

By now we all know what happened in Minneapolis on the afternoon of Monday, May 25th, Memorial Day to be exact, when 46-year black American George Floyd died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white officer’s knee, a move frowned upon as per official police guidelines, after being arrested on “suspicion of forgery” and appearing to be “under the influence.” 

The incident was recorded by a 17-year old bystander on her cell phone, thus becoming ground zero of all that was to follow, as this video soon thereafter starting showing up on major social media sites. Eventually leading to an F.B.I. federal civil rights investigation as well as to the firing and the bringing charges of third degree murder and manslaughter against Officer Derek Chauvin with the other officers* on scene still possibly facing charges of their own...did afford the temporarily sleeping malcontents, if you will, a new reason to wake up and garner for themselves more “free stuff” while at the same time callously burning areas of Minneapolis to the ground. And now not only will Minneapolis most likely never be the same again, but so too New York, LA, and a multitude of other Democrat controlled cities where the malcontents have been acting very badly.

 
So while the evidence showing the officer's knee on George Floyd's neck is surely damning and appears to be proof-positive that justice in some way needs to be served, sometimes even what's deemed proof-positive comes with caveats, and in this case it's the now official ME report. But no matter the crime committed that still does not give others the right to loot, steal, and commit arson as a way to vent their anger. And what's more amazing is that said anger is being vented against their own people, because the ones they're stealing from, the ones whose businesses they're burning to the ground, are businesses predominately owned by those who share their own black skin color. And yet when their anger finally does subside, as it usually does, they will expect “whitey” to rebuild and restock it all for to some it's but a small amount of what they consider overdue “reparations” finally being paid. 

And it's these folks very actions that has led me to wonder just what would the great civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., say about all this for Dr. King was a man who truly opposed violence as a means to a solution...he was a man who championed peaceful protesting as the one and only way for black Americans to achieve what is still referred to as “social justice.” 

“Nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence.” These were Dr. King's very wise words, words which especially now should be taken to heart by those in Minneapolis and other compromised cities who see violence as the only way to counter the “evil” done to George Floyd, never mind that the “evil” in part was self-inflicted. 

Dr. King knew well that violence never solves a problem, he knew violence only exasperates the problem allowing it to fester and grow until unabated hatred and frustration hold sway over the underlying problem itself...an act which in turn leads to a boiling point from which there might be a point of no return. 

And it was Dr. King himself who authored and lived by these “Six Key Principles of Non-Violence,” with the first key point being that “one can resist evil without resorting to violence,” something that seems to be lost on those now rioting and destroying key Democrat cities in Democrat held states as they garner up the “free stuff” they alone deem is owed to them. And this is never mind the fact that their actions are actually hurting their own cause. How so...this latest round of violence, I believe, just plays into long held negative stereotypes that many in America's black communities have worked so hard to negate, as it once again paints even those whose cause is just as being but Dr. King's feared perpetrators of “evil.”  

Dr. King's second key principal which goes hand-in-had with the third is that “nonviolence seeks to win the “friendship and understanding” of the opponent, not to humiliate him”...in this case meaning that the best reaction to George Floyd's death should have been not to overreact with inappropriate acts of violence to one white man's crime by destroying what your own people have worked so hard to achieve. And the third key principal is that only the person who has actually committed an “evil act” should be the one opposed, coupled together with Dr. King's fourth key principal, as in “those committed to nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation as suffering itself can be redemptive.” Translation: one should not be the judge, jury, and executioner of someone else's “evil act” until one looks in the mirror at their own actions and reactions.  

And the fifth of Dr. King's Six Key Principals of Non-Violence states that non-violent resistance avoids “external physical violence” and “internal violence of spirit.” In other words, what I believe Dr. King meant is that if one is driven to commit physical acts of violence than one is probably driven to do so by the spirit of violence and hate that most likely resides deep within their own heart. And the sixth and last key principle is that the non-violent resisters must have a “deep faith in the future,” which I take to mean that not only will the future unfold as it is meant to be, but that the future is not only determined by past actions but more importantly by present day inactions regarding situations that can too easily spin out of control. 

And spin out of control has surely happened here for while the tape of the officer with his knee on George Floyd's neck is indeed damning let alone telling it has proven to be not the whole story as the ME report has seen to that. And something now seeming to have been forgotten is that in this country one is innocent until proven guilty. Translation: the legal process must be allowed to play out.  

So what did Dr. King have to say about the legal process in regards to rioting and violence? While in 1968 he did say that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” Dr. King also said that, “as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.” In other words, Dr. King's warnings concerning possible future violence have actually been twisted into excuses for justifying violence by those who are now perpetrating violence. 

And it's this self-perceived “postponing of justice” that is the actual excuse now being used by the malcontents for they still to this day perceive justice as not having been served in the cases of Barack HUSSEIN Obama's “If I had son...” Treyvon Martin, Rodney King, Michael Brown, and a multiple of other young and middle-aged black men who have died at the hands of white police officers...some dying even as a direct result of their having committed and running away from a crime scene. 

And as for Dr. King's words “the language of the unheard”...while Dr. King did follow up those words with, “What is it that America has failed to hear?” he did answer his own question by stating that, “It (as in America) has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the past few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. It has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity.”  

So while those words did speak of what Dr. King perceived as being the truth about where race relations stood at that time, in no way did his words condone violence as being the answer to solving the now growing racial disparities that were dividing this country what with groups like the Black Panthers being born while Dr. King was still alive...groups espousing violence as being the only way to achieve acceptable answers to what “America has failed to hear.” Nor do I believe this man of peace would condone today's acts of violence even after he himself died by an act of violence...an act which seems to have been the touch-point for today's younger black Americans being less willing than their elders to wait for and see being delivered long promised “social reforms.”

 
But the bottom line is this, in today's world of race relations seemingly gone bust, thanks of course to the Obama administration setting back race relations a good fifty years if not more, it seems that rioting, looting, and arson have become the standard and acceptable response every time a black man is killed by a white police office. Setting themselves up as the officer's judge and jury without allowing for needed investigations to take place or for a trial to unfold, today such killings, whether they be justified or not, allows those malcontents to not only let off steam but to garner for themselves, without fear of reprisal, what others have without their having to work for it. And yet these same folks cry fowl when white folk don't, to them, honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a way that they alone approve. But the truth is what good is having a holiday for the civil rights leader if a good number of his own people ignore both his words and his actions.  

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” And it's these very words of Dr. King's that now sadly do apply to the hoards of malcontents, after all their actions do speak louder than their words shouted, especially when said actions drown out the words of the very man they having willingly chosen to turn their backs on. Dr, King must be looking down from heaven shaking his head wondering just where and when his hoped for “dream” turned into a nightmare.  

And the two truly saddest things of all is first, violence of the scope we are now witnessing could only have been pre-planned waiting for just the right incident to set the wheels of destruction in motion...November 3, 2020 anyone. And second, what will happen to Officer Chauvin now that the ME report has been released and the fact that's he's on suicide watch...will his death alone be the only thing that soothes the malcontents or will he be afforded a fair trial. A conundrum that even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., if he were alive today, might have given him pause to wonder...just saying.  

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* The three other fired officers are Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng.

  

Copyright @ 2020 Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / All Rights Reserved.

   

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Craig Andresen's blog The National Patriot to read his latest article, The Mindless Baboonery of Domestic Terrorists.

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE!    

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 2nd from 7 to 9pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss 'What Would Dr. King Say?'; 'The Mindless Baboonery of Domestic Terrorists'; and important news of the day.

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