By Meg Pawley

If you take a look around the Twin Cities today, you might mistake it for the year 1967. As a reaction to the repeated, state-sanctioned execution of black men and women that continues in the US today, an uprising has begun. What began as peaceful protests in 1967 became bona fide race riots all over the country. When discussing the riots, Dr. King said:

“Riot is the language of the unheard, and what is it that has America failed to hear? 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, equality, and humanity.”

Those words are still relevant today, as the peaceful protests in Minneapolis and Saint Paul have also ended in riots. Engagingly, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, I have seen far more white people criticize the riots than the senseless act itself. Most of them accompany their (unwarranted) opinion with one quote or another from Dr. King that, taken wildly out of context, seems to only promote peace and love. 

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