Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
This past Monday was the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, and if you ever needed an example of how America continues to gaslight Black people and play in our faces, look no further than the tweet the FBI sent out in “commemoration” of that day.
“This #MLKDay, the #FBI honors one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights movement and reaffirms its commitment to Dr. King’s legacy of fairness and equal justice for all,” their social media person wrote as a caption to a photo of the MLK monument in Washington, D.C.
A Twitter community note added to the tweet said, “The FBI engaged in the surveillance of King, attempted to discredit him, and used manipulation tactics to influence him to stop organizing. King’s family believe the FBI was responsible for his death.”
Included with the Community Note was a CBS special report from 1999, in which Coretta Scott King said she felt “vindicated” by a jury in a civil lawsuit finding “her husband was the victim of a conspiracy, not a lone assassin.” (The Department of Justice conducted an investigation and found the conspiracy claims not credible.)
In addition to the Community Note added to the tweet, there were thousands of replies and quote tweets from Twitter users calling the FBI out on its hypocrisy.
This isn’t the first time the FBI has trolled us with this particular tweet on this particular day, and it likely won’t be the last because if nothing else, AmeriKKKa is going to AmeriKKKa, and that includes finding new and improved ways to continue the forced subjugation of Black people in this country while lying in our faces about how much progress we have made and how “equal” things are now.
Take Nikki Haley for example.
The former U.N. ambassador, governor of South Carolina and current presidential candidate…
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