When Martin Luther King Jr. said: “I am tired of marching for something that should’ve been mine at birth,” he was not speaking as a salesman. It was not his expert marketing but the genuine revolutionary ebb of the declaration that won over so many hearts. It is very disappointing to see the man who once torched consumerism and condemned advertisers in capitalist American society in his famous “Drum Major Instinct” speech now being used in Ram truck commercials.
Much debate has occurred over the civil rights movement diminishing in the 21st century. Many claim that millennials do not possess the same environment to create the same talent as the generation before them. Others claim there is no need for another civil rights movement because equal opportunity has been ushered in.
Both are wrong in their analysis. The civil rights movement is as relevant as ever in an era where black people are 2.5 times more likely to be shot by police, and no justice follows.
The civil rights movement is needed in an era where millions of Americans live in poverty, militarism is still rampant and women are still not receiving justice after they are physically or sexually assaulted.
The truth is: the civil rights movement still exists but has been bought out by the very massive corporations it fights against. The evidence is displayed by events surrounding modern day civil rights hero and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick has shown exceptional courage to question the “carpe diem” parade in a country too averse to criticism.
His innocuous protest of kneeling during the national anthem pierced the heart of millions of Americans and turned into a movement toward social justice. Soon enough, Nike found the publicity surrounding Kaepernick riveting and decided to capitalize on a calculated business opportunity.
Kaepernick isn’t to blame for his cooperation with Nike. In capitalism, moral choices by individual consumers are scarce. In a way, we, as a collective society, have failed Kaepernick by not supporting him enough. The NFL Player’s Association failed Kaepernick and forced him to seek outside sources to promote his platform.
Many have praised Nike’s decision to advertise for Kaepernick, but it is obvious Nike is simply trying to distract from its own human rights violations. Nike has for a long time outsourced labor to countries secluded from American consciousness so it can carry out its exploitation of workers. It has participated in the enslavement of minorities by using free prison labor.
The company has donated more to the Republican Party, whose beliefs are the antithesis of Kaepernick’s message, than to the Democratic Party. Nike has bought out both Democrats and Republicans and now is holding the civil rights movement in custody.
By co-opting the civil rights movement, large corporations are able to hide their private interest behind a facade of humanitarianism. They have effectively eliminated the socialist tradition of the civil rights movement and even pimped out the movement for their own profit.
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing,” human rights activist Malcolm X said. All around the U.S., we’re witnessing the corporate media create a false sense of civil rights activism.
The Human Rights Campaign, an organization making a complete mockery of its own name, endorsed current governor Andrew Cuomo over challenger Cynthia Nixon in New York’s gubernatorial race. The Human Rights Campaign cited Cuomo as a champion for LGBT rights, when his track record has shown the opposite.
Cuomo has worked with the now dissolved Independent Democratic Conference, who has been vehemently anti-LGBT rights, while Cynthia Nixon is a member of the LGBT community.
We are seeing an unprecedented amount of activists who are identity-reductionists, claiming class has no intersection. These so-called activists are rationalizing the opulence donated from big companies by removing economic policy from the equation. This has created a collective consciousness whose solutions to societal problems will continuously fail.
When The Intercept journalist Briahna Joy asked Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders about the never-ending debate of class versus race, he responded, “It’s not either-or. It’s never either-or. It’s both.”
If we have any hope for American society, the civil rights movement must be liberated from the clenching hands of economic Lucifer, capitalism. We must follow King’s teachings, who not only advocated for equality of identities in his “I Have A Dream” speech, but who also sought to end poverty with his “Poor People’s Campaign.”
Soheil Saneei is a 20-year-old biological engineering sophomore from Metairie, Louisiana.
