Selective Outrage and the Hierarchies of Desirability: Immigration, Protest, and MLK's Prophetic Witness
How the Right and the Left Have Misappropriated Dr. King to Pacify Change
As Angelinos (folx from Los Angeles, California) rose up to challenge the federally sanctioned kidnapping, by unidentifiable, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, of Latinx peoples throughout this country, right-leaning folks had a collective meltdown. None bigger than our commander-in-chief who was so unnerved by the sight of nonviolent (free) Brown bodies pushing back on his edicts that he ordered 2000 National Guardsman and 700 marines to enforce force during what L.A.P.D. called a peaceful protest. So much for the pro-free speech crowd.
As this constitutionally protected protest was taking shape, the inevitable invocations of Rev. Dr. Martig Luther King, Jr., began permeating the Twitter (X) verse. This happens anytime there is civil unrest. Folks, especially though not exclusively, who would hate Dr. King were he alive today (the White House, after replacing Obama’s Presidential photo, also removed MLK, Jr.’s bust) love to offer this famous quote: “A riot is the language of the unheard", as though it was intended as a condemnation of peaceful protest. It’s not. Instead, this was a message and a warning. If the state continued, obdurately, to ignore the pleas of people who are being targeted and victimized by systemic anti-Blackness, protests will continue, and eventually, they will escalate. Dr. King would go on to say,
"And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct-action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society.
These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."
See, for King, the problem wasn’t the protest. The problem was the conditions that made protest the only viable outlet and recourse for disenfranchised, “unheard” peoples. The same is true in L.A. ICE agents are indiscriminately kidnapping Brown people who they feel look like immigrants and (by racist extension) criminals, including asylum seekers (https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/lawsuit-ice-unlawfully-arrests-19-year-old-asylum-seeker-at-his-immigration-hearing-orgs-file-for-immediate-release), non-criminals (https://www.cato.org/blog/ice-arresting-1100-percent-more-noncriminals-streets-2017), and even American citizens (
They are approaching their job with a kind of religious zeal.
But the zeal is targeted. It’s a kind of selective outrage because they are not pursuing and detaining European immigrants with the same aplomb.
America’s Immigration Policy and the Racial Hierarchies of Desirability
The haunting truth of American immigration policy is that it was never about borders—it has always been about exerting power over nonwhite bodies. Since its inception, U.S. immigration law has operationalized a logic of racial desirability: constructing and enforcing hierarchies of human worth in service of white supremacy.
From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the National Origins Act of 1924, immigration law has functioned not merely as an administrative tool but as a settler-colonial instrument for racial engineering—curating the nation’s population to conform to white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant ideals. In this context, ICE’s violent targeting of Brown immigrants is not an aberration. It is the inevitable outgrowth of a system that has always policed proximity to whiteness.
Victor Ray names this with surgical precision in On Critical Race Theory, where he writes:
“Immigration laws were designed to protect whiteness, to ensure that the racial composition of the country remained favorable to those already in power.”
Ray situates immigration enforcement within a broader racial project: it is not only about who gets in, but who is imagined as belonging, who is protected, and who is perpetually vulnerable to state-sanctioned removal. This is the very logic undergirding today’s immigration raids and deportations—targeting Mexican, Central American, Haitian, and other Black and Brown communities while leaving white (often undocumented) Europeans relatively untouched.
To understand this double standard, we must acknowledge what Ray describes as “racialized statecraft”—the deliberate, sustained use of law, policy, and bureaucratic discretion to privilege whiteness while criminalizing racialized others. That ICE disproportionately detains and deports Brown immigrants is not because Brown bodies pose a greater threat, but because they are structurally positioned outside the sphere of protected citizenship. Their existence in the nation-state is conditional, surveilled, and disposable.
This is the living legacy the “hierarchies of desirability”—an ethos baked into the American immigration regime that continues to declare some lives as valuable and others as expendable. Until we dismantle the foundational logics that create these hierarchies, the violence will persist—legal, yes, but never just.
And, they are denying detainees due process while also shipping many of them away to foreign countries without allowing them to exercise their 5th Amendment (to the Constitution) Right to have their day in court. This is why Angelinos and folks all over this country rose and continue to rise up to protest these injustices. But, like I wrote above, almost as if on cue, the appeals to Dr. King are offered to placate protest.
Recently, I was invited (by being tagged, which is akin to being double-dog dared) to contribute to a Facebook conversation that centered a quote from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (who, for the most part is kind of an ally) re: the civil—yet largely peaceful—unrest gripping California and other parts of this country (which, importantly, was founded on protest—remember the Boston Tea Party?).
"Dr. King defeated racist government officials & ended segregation through disciplined non-violent resistance. Defeating Trumpism, oligarchy & authoritarianism requires that same level of discipline. Violent protests are counterproductive and play right into Trump's playbook."
A Sanitized Prophet for Political Convenience
Here, I think Bernie rehashed an incomplete, confabulatory retelling of Dr. King’s resistance work. When assessing MLK’s resistance, the question of the efficacy of nonviolence really hinges on how we define—and operationalize—violence. Dr. King borrowed from Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha—translated as “truth-force” or “love-force”—and paired it with the radical love ethic of Jesus Christ.
Violence and force are, in many ways, synonymous; the definition of violence includes force, and vice versa. Jesus, who urged his followers to “turn the other cheek” in Matthew 5, also declared later in Matthew 11:12: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” In that later verse, He was referencing John the Baptist—JTB—who forcibly (i.e., violently) rejected the dogmatic stranglehold that organized religion had on and over people.
JTB zealously advocated for spiritual freedom, not only in word but also in his appearance and diet (John 3:4); and John preached a fiery, unapologetic message calling people in while, simultaneously, calling out empty and even prosecutorial, dogmatic religious practices and the religious people that perpetuated them (Matt. 3:7). His ministry was a living, dynamic protest of religious oppression.
JTB had no qualms about openly challenging religious authority and called for a more just, less corrupt society (Luke 3:12–14). He demanded that the wanton, greedy, and unjust care for the less fortunate. (Sound like anyone familiar?) And in so doing, he challenged religious hypocrisy as well as the social status quo of his time. His reward for truth-telling, his call for repentance, was the same reward that his (probable) cousin and fellow religiosity-buster (Matt. 23:1-36), Jesus of Nazareth. received. He was murder by the state. JTB was beheaded (Matt. 15:1-12); and, Jesus, as most of us know, was hung on a cross. (But, hallelujah, that was not the end of Jesus’ story!)
JTB challenged religious leaders to live out their creed, their doctrine—to embody their dogma and stated mission—by violently (in word) pointing out their hypocrisy. Jesus was trying to help them understand that could not live out their creed without Him. In both instances, the message was not received—all three revolutionaries (JC, JTB, and MLK) were “left on read”.
Dr. King as a Functional Prophet
Dr. King called for radical citizenship, which includes the recognition of radical dignity for Black people in America. (To be more accurate, Dr. King never really advocated for “Black” people; instead, he advocated for the Negro, which was an assimilationist term.) At every turn, he challenged—and demanded—that America honor her own promises of justice for all. His deep love for justice compelled him to confront the social status quo just as JTB confronted the theocracy of his day. Neither of them fully defeated their enemy—religious and social oppression, respectively—but maybe that wasn’t the point. They were prophets.
Dr. King may not have been a canonical prophet, but he was unquestionably a functional prophet. Both he and JTB served as the conscience of their times. Both proclaimed freedom—spiritual and societal. Both risked everything, impelled by God, to fight for a more just future. That’s prophetic work. And both were spiritually violent (i.e., forceful) men who unrelentingly sought to seize the "kingdom" of heaven.
It’s true that Rev. Dr. King’s nonviolence was, in fact, physically nonviolent—just like JTB’s—but for Dr. King, it was spiritually (and eventually economically) violent. His goal was to exact a spiritual toll, though ever careful to avoid descending into hatred. King didn’t “defeat” racism—not because he was ineffective, but because that was never a feasible plan. He was far too brilliant, far too strategic; to be naive enough to believe he could singlehandedly eradicate white supremacy, militarism, capitalism, or anti-Blackness. Instead, he wielded his voice to expose America's hypocrisy and, crucially, to guide her toward a more perfect union.
There’s a lot we can learn from Dr. King’s approach. We know—empirically—that cross-racial, socioeconomic, and interreligious solidarity is incredibly powerful. In some cases, it’s unstoppable. The Civil Rights Movement could not have happened without solidarity, without satyagraha.
But we are in a different time. Just as King stood on the shoulders of Jesus, JTB, and Gandhi, we must build upon the foundation laid by Dr. King. Unfortunately, King is often invoked to quell protest—those invocations miss the point entirely. Yes, Dr. King abhorred physical violence. And yes, at one point, he exercised his Second Amendment rights (though he later got rid of his pistol and opted for unarmed bodyguards). He was multidimensional, and clearly he was also in a state of radical becoming. But my point is this: Dr. King didn’t defeat systemic oppression with nonviolence. He didn’t defeat it at all. What he did do was interrupt it—forcefully.
He called out racism, white supremacy, militarism, and economic injustice with the force of his voice, his pulpit, his commitment, his organizing brilliance and his body through civil disobedience. King violently challenged America’s racial caste system without ever raising a physical weapon. His weapon of choice was morally violent, radically loving truth-telling.
Mischaracterization as a Tool of Suppression
Each January and February—during MLK Day and Black History Month—and seemingly every time Black and Brown folks rise up in protest, we are confronted by an avalanche of misappropriated King quotes. These invocations, often by both the political Right and sometimes the Left, aim to sanitize resistance. We’re seeing this live in Los Angeles, as people protest the Trump administration’s draconian immigration and deportation policies—policies that seek to strip due process, a foundational legal right, from those who set foot on American soil.
We must be clear: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s activism and critique have been largely misunderstood and grossly misused.
Dr. King was not opposed to civil disobedience or civil unrest; he was opposed to physical violence because he felt it was morally wrong (Shelby & Terry, 2020). But we cannot allow that moral framework to be used against those engaging in the kind of spiritually disruptive work that Dr. King himself did. In his own words: "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." He further elaborates, "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." And quoting Augustine, he reminds us: "An unjust law is no law at all." (King, 1963).
Baldwin, Glaude, and the Exposing of "The Lie"
James Baldwin and Dr. King were contemporaries and co-conspirators who understood this nation's failure to make good on its democratic promises. Baldwin wrote, "It is not really a 'Negro revolution' that is upsetting the country. What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity." (Baldwin, 1963). This refusal to confront the truth—what Eddie Glaude (2020) calls "the lie"—undergirds our national identity and is reinforced through revisionist histories that erase the systemic roots of injustice.
This is not happenstantial. Intentional efforts to rewrite history go at least as far back as the Daughters of the Confederacy’s (1894) revisionist “Lost Cause” history that sought to transform and rebrand the treasonous Confederate succession, during the Civil War, as a fight for a southern way of life and not the right to continuing owning and exploiting Black bodies. They focused on changing curricula in order to first inculcate, and later change minds. This is a fascist tactic.
Vladimir Putin is quoted as saying, “wars are won by teachers.” That statement is chilling—but not new. It echoes Antonio Gramsci’s operationalization of hegemony, which, for him, names the ongoing ideological struggle between the ruling class and the subaltern. What’s at stake in this war? Control over which ideologies—and whose knowledge—become commonsensical. The Daughters of the Confederacy understood this. They knew that if they could shape the curriculum, they could rewrite history and, by extension, reframe the present. (This is precisely why Louis Althusser identified schools as ideological state apparatuses.)
To Putin’s point, curriculum—and the educators who are deputized to deliver it—can be far more effective than conventional wartime weaponry. Under authoritarian regimes, teachers and textbooks become the state’s mouthpieces—conduits for autocratically-constrained commonsense. And commonsense, left unchallenged, calcifies into "truth." Just look at the racialized conflation between Latino/x/a identities in this most recent wave of ICE aggression. It has become commonsensical in many circles that anyone who appears to be a Brown person from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, etc., is here illegally. (Of course, it’s critical to remember: legality—like crime—is not a neutral category. It is a social construct shaped by power.)
If we are to do equity-advancing work, we must confront the purportedly commonsensical lies that have become axiomatic. As I have said elsewhere, "The fetishization of surplus value, which both catalyzed and necessitated racialized capitalism, produced white supremacy, which then produced the concept of race in order to prove its 'superior' positionality." Racism is not incidental—it is foundational. Its endurance is driven not only by institutional design but by what Cornel West calls a "spiritual blackout" (West, 2004).
This is why this administration, Trump’s administration, is wholly invested in rewriting, or specifically whitewashing history. If he is successful in rewriting history, he is then able to reconfigure the present. Prior to this, Trump’s second term, rights like birthright citizenship and due process were not in peril. This is now, however, a concerted war fought on two interconnected fronts. Erase history and, therefore, precedence while using revisionist history to double down on fascism. King was seeking to overcome darkness like this in his work.
Radical Love as a Force for Justice
And yet, amid this darkness, Dr. King insisted on love. Not a tepid, passive love—but a radical, moral, truth-telling love. He said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Our love for justice must be the animating force of our actions.
Dr. King dreamed that this country could one day realize its potential—without ever losing sight of reality. In Where Do We Go From Here, he wrote, "The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro... But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity." (King, 1967). King’s critique was unflinching: "Capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of Black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both Black and white, both here and abroad." (King, 1967).
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Fullness of the Prophet
In invoking King today, let us do so honestly. Not as a pacifier. Not as a cudgel. But as a prophet filled with the Black prophetic fire that Dr. Cornel West describes in his book of the same name, “Black prophetic fire is the hypersensitivity to the suffering of others that generates a righteous indignation that results in the willingness to live and die for freedom…(p.38).” Dr. King was prophet who believed that "A riot is the language of the unheard" and that "America has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened." (King, 1966).
Dr. King challenged this country—and those of us who dwell within it—to walk the path of radical love, spiritual fortitude, and unwavering truth. If we must cite him, let it be authentic, honest, and in full voice—not as a contrived, disingenuous whisper to quell rebellion, but as a shout where deep calls out to deep; a shout to awaken justice. If people our suffering, we should help—whatever that looks like. What we cannot do, however, is dismiss or ignore the people who are begging for their radical human dignity to be recognized and safeguarding, because they’re not asking the right way. That was Dr. King’s point. Don’t overdetermine the medium—focus on the message.