The King holiday ritual transformed disremembering into expiation of racial sins.

Evidence

In this way, King’s words aided the national process of turning a blind eye to the legacies of white supremacy and the persistence of racial inequality. For some, the holiday effectively washed our national hands clean. The ritual act of disremembering became a ritual of expiation: the sins of our racial past gave way to an emphasis on individual merit and responsibility. Racial inequality was not seen as the result of deeply ingrained habits, racist policies, or actual discrimination but, rather, as the result of a culture of pathology, which produced bad, irresponsible black people. Moreover, any attempt to call attention to race in public policy debates, to acknowledge the significance of racial and cultural differences in the public domain, was subject to claims of reverse racism or denounced as polarizing rhetoric, leaving racial habits unchecked in public deliberations. The result has been devastating: black suffering has been banished from public view on the national stage. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 304

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the culture-of-pathology idea present in discussions of Moynihan and welfare debates.