On Power: Martin Luther King Day meets Trump Inauguration Day 2025

This is from the MLK Address "Where Do We Go From Here?"

"[A challenge is] how to organise our strength in terms of economic and political power.

"No one can deny that the [racialised person] is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the [racialised person] confronts is [their] lack of power....[they] have been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness.

"Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning [their] life and destiny [they] have been subject to authoritarian and sometime whimsical decision of this white power structure.

"The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who has power, both to confine those with no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The problem of transforming the ghetto*, therefore, is a problem of power - confrontation of the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.

"It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change.

"...Power is the ability of [e.g.] a union to make the most powerful corporation in the world say 'Yes', when it wants to say 'No.' That is power."

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”

My question to us all is can we consider some social media platforms as creating 'ghettoes' today? Are we being penned into powerlessness under the guise of being able to organise? Or is organisation being policed?

Maybe it's time to re-organise.

We shall overcome