Deconstructing King’s “Beyond Vietnam”: Pedagogy, Decolonial Thought, and Internationalism during the Vietnam Era

• In Event: Toward an Anti-Imperial Thought in Education: Pedagogy, Methodology, and Struggle for a World Anew

Abstract

The presentation is interested in understanding how Vietnamese bodies are racialized both in Vietnam and in the diaspora over time. I want to think about the relationship between colonialism and racism for the Vietnamese, and more generally, Asian Americans within US sociological, educational, and popular discourses. In order to do so, it is imperative that we trace a genealogy of protest and resistance as part and parcel of an internationalist class struggle and to think about what it means to live a world revolution. I am tracing a particular moment in history (primarily post-1945) when oppressed groups fought for decolonization and self-determination against their oppressors. Because of the oftentimes asymmetrical/power relationship, we have movements of people from the colony to the metropole.

I attempt to move the discourse of postcolonialism toward decolonial thought– drawing from Latin American liberation theology, and specifically philosophers Enrique Dussel’s ethics of liberation and Paulo Freire’s (2018) notion of humanization, to understand the Vietnamese condition. In King’s (2015) words: “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society... (pg. 213).

As a way to think through the dialectical relationship between colonialism and racism (and to substantiate the Vietnam War or rather the American War in Vietnam), I will do a close reading of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (2015) “Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break Silence” speech at Riverside Church in New York City where he articulated a critique of American imperialism and its “triple evils” of racism, materialism, and militarism. This speech, drafted with the assistance of advisors that included Vincent Harding and John McGuire—given to about three thousand people of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam—was a major turning point for King in his anti-war stance. Many people, including politicians and civil rights leaders alike, were not pleased that King, as they see it, were speaking out of turn. They were concerned that his stance on the war jeopardize his role as a “race” leader—stating very explicitly that “peace and civil rights don’t mix.”

It is important to note that the “Beyond Vietnam” speech, made on April 4, 1967, was exactly a year to the date when he was assassinated in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1968, where he was supporting the strikes of its city’s sanitation workers. King, while understanding where these comments are coming from, was “greatly saddened for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling” (King, 2015, pg. 202). King recognizes very astutely that the “ultimate logic of racism is genocide” and made a conscious shift toward economic democracy and internationalism in the last few years of his life. In addition, I am wanting to think about the pedagogical implications for scholars and thinkers in education research in grappling with notions of warfare, imperialism, racism, coloniality, and historical materialism.

Author

• Kevin D. Lam, Drake University