King’s dream was weaponized to confirm national innocence instead of dismantling white supremacy.

Evidence

When Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial he methodically laid out the challenges before the nation. As he reached the end of the speech, Mahalia Jackson, his favorite gospel singer, shouted out, “Tell ’em ’bout the dream, Martin.” It was a prophetic beckoning. She wanted him to give voice to the power of the imagination: that one day black people, in this country, could be the human beings God called us to be. This was not a vision consonant with the white fantasy of ridding the nation of the problem of black people by making us invisible. It was something much more. King wanted us to become a democracy released from the burdens of white supremacy. Sadly, for so many now and in the hands of a certain few like Reagan and Clinton, Dr. King’s words have become an instrument of the tragedy of America. Like vultures (and African Americans have joined in the feast) we have picked clean his bones, such that his powerful dream confirms the illusion of our national innocence and keeps us sleepwalking while black America withers. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 322

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘vultures picking clean his bones, African Americans joining the feast’ image could anchor an essay on how the Dream trope functions as a national anesthetic.