That's a strange position to pivot off of - there's no normative claim in that entire passage, just an analytical deconstruction of a societal manifestation.

"Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights."

Maybe times have changed, but this is excusing and not at all accurately characterizing the people I saw looting Nike, Best Buy, and Walmart. It was naked theft under the cover of "equity." I want to know whether MLK was principled, or a politician making excuses. I'll do more research.

Interesting...you seem to have a superpower... you can look at someone and read their exact psychological state... you know their wants and intentions from a glance... How do you sleep with such a burden?

> The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions.

This sentence is particularly egregious.

To see MLK just come straight out and say black people don't target institutions because they don't care about changing them kind of defeats any legitimate argument for rioting.

The problem with the MLK quote is that he is just confirming what every racist white person thinks, institutional racism isn't a thing black people just want free shit and are willing to resort to violence to get it.

I don't think anybody is defending the legitimacy of rioting, are they? The MLK quote is an examination of the rioters' motivation and state of mind.

The topic being discussed is whether there is a legitimate defense of rioting and plenty of people feel like it is. For example if the police abuse their powers its just for citizens to riot against the police smashing police cars and throwing bricks at police stations / cameras. Its very easy to justify the legitimacy of this as you are directly disrupting the ability for the police to operate freely.

Looting another citizen is much harder to justify the legitimacy of, disguising looting as rioting makes it easier to do so.

Not sure why you got downvoted for thinking aloud. It’s very much worth reading in depth about how the activists of the 1960s formulated their views. MLK wasn’t a born messiah, he refined his philosophy over the course of his life and only came to adopt a non-violent strategy after others influenced him. It’s quite easy to cherry pick a quote from a younger MLK that an older one wouldn’t agree with.

It sounds like you're assessing his ideas based on whether they harmonize with your current ideology, ergo thinking about it in terms of "favorability" like how you might vote for a politician. This is not the right way to read a persuasive essay.

Sure.

https://www.google.com/search?q=mlk+thoughts+on+riots

I am assuming your comment was in good faith, although it's odd for an HN user to ask a question that could be answered by a simple google search.

I also note your highly loaded language of "race wars" which is not the same thing as a what everyone else is talking about in this thread.

The term "race wars" is a term that is frequently used by online right-wing agitators in order to derail discussions and push people's buttons. I'm not saying you're doing that, I am saying that it's not possible to distinguish your post from a post written by a ultra-right troll.

How do I know this? Because in college I was trained by right-wing activist to use exactly that type of language in order derail conversations.

If that's your reaction to that paragraph, I can pretty confidently predict that you would have despised him while he was alive.