Commentary: It’s the same song, different verse, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2026.
Ed.: The essays, analyses and opinions presented as Community Voices express the perspectives of their authors on topics of interest and importance to the community, and are not intended to reflect perspectives on behalf of Salish Current.
As we approach MLK Day and Black History Month, I’m watching history stutter and repeat like a scratched record. Same song, different verse. As if we collectively decided that Dr. King’s dream was just a fever that broke when the bullet hit, and now we’re back to business as usual. Or maybe we never left.
I keep thinking about moments that taught me how this works. High school, South Central LA, I’m reading “The Biography of Malcolm X.” A fellow white student points at my book: “Why are you reading that? That guy’s an asshole.” That’s the first lesson — even learning about self-defense makes you dangerous. Fast-forward to ’92. I’m living in LA when the city burns because four cops beat Rodney King on camera and walked free. The whole thing on video, and it still wasn’t enough. Then Kaepernick takes a knee — literally the gentlest form of protest you can imagine — and gets blackballed from the NFL. Last week, a white woman gets killed by ICE for standing up for her neighbors against aggressive ICE agents hunting anyone who “looks” like an immigrant.
You see the pattern? The rules are simple: stay nonthreatening, stay patient, stay ineffective. We get the Disney version of MLK every January — the “I Have a Dream” speech on loop, quotes about love, children holding hands. It’s a bedtime story we tell ourselves. But the man we’re celebrating was assassinated in 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers, organizing poor people across race lines, calling out racism, poverty and militarism as connected evils. The MLK who said the system needs tearing down and rebuilding, we don’t talk about him. That version makes people nervous.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about: Christianity came to Black folks on slave ships. “Slaves obey your masters.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Your reward is in heaven.” We got taught that humanity is something you prove by absorbing violence without hitting back. Nonviolence wasn’t our strategy — it was a test we had to pass.
And it’s bigger than just us. Indigenous peoples peaceful while dealing with genocide. Women politely requesting bodily autonomy. Immigrants running a weighted race without complaint. The oppressed get graded on how well they smile through it, how patiently they explain their worth.
Here’s what bothers me most: we’ve decided fixing oppression is the oppressed’s job. We celebrate beautiful suffering, endless education, repeated proof of humanity. Meanwhile, where’s the accountability for folks with actual power?
That’s backward. Responsibility belongs to those causing harm, not those surviving it. But we’ve built this mythology where the oppressed must convince their oppressors — through suffering, dignity, perfect behavior — that they deserve humanity. It’s rigged.
But here’s what gives me hope: I’m watching these old systems crack in real time. You can’t build lasting stability on extraction and violence. A house on sand doesn’t stand, period. And what we’re seeing now? This might be the final death throes — a wounded snake lashing out at everything before it finally dies.
This connects directly to WREC’s vision of Whatcom County: a place where people of all backgrounds don’t just survive but actually thrive. So the question is, “what are we doing that’s keeping them from thriving in the first place?” Not “how do we include more people?” but “what power and privilege do we need to redistribute?”
It means white institutions examining their own practices. Men confronting patriarchy in themselves. Colonizers reckoning with Indigenous sovereignty. People with power asking hard questions about how they got it and who paid the price.
So, here’s what I’m asking Whatcom County on MLK Day: Stop waiting for Black folks, Indigenous folks, people of color, women, marginalized communities to be perfect enough to deserve equity. Perfect victims who never get angry, never fight back, never stop educating you. Stop celebrating our suffering while maintaining the systems that create it.
Start holding power accountable. Not for managing oppression better, but for dismantling it.
I’m not calling for violence. I’m calling for honesty. These extractive systems will collapse eventually — that’s just physics. We can either build something different now or wait for the crash. And I’m saying we’re all in this together, whether we acknowledge it or not. A system that’s failing some of us will eventually fail all of us.
MLK’s legacy isn’t a museum piece. It’s unfinished business. And the tools we need now include the courage to name who’s really responsible for change and the wisdom to understand that our survival is linked. We go forward together, or we don’t go at all.
That’s liberation. That’s what honoring his legacy actually requires.
— By Erik McFrazier
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Beyond the holiday, MLK Jr.’s vision confronts today’s political reality,” Jan. 16, 2026
• “Annual event to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of inclusion ” Jan. 2, 2025
• “Clyde Ford to speak on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Jan. 2, 2025
• “Commentary: MLK Day in Bellingham: looking backward, stepping forward,” Jan. 10, 2022
• “Commentary: Clyde Ford on speaking up and raising eyebrows,” March 25, 2021
• • •
We welcome letters to the editor responding to or amplifying subjects addressed in Community Voices. If you wish to contribute to Community Voices, please send an email with a subject proposal to Executive Editor Mike Sato and he will respond with guidelines.
Help keep the local news flowing — support nonpartisan, fact-based, no-paywall local journalism
with a donation to Salish Current — news for people, not for profit.