Martin Luther King, Jr., Urged Everyone To Be ‘Maladjusted’ To Racism, APA Reminds
In a 1967 address to the American Psychological Association, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasized … [+] that everyone should never become adjusted to racism, religious bigotry, economic inequities, physical violence, and other social injustices. (Photo: Getty)
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Sometimes being maladjusted can be a good thing. That’s what Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. essentially said during his speech at the APA’s Annual Convention in Washington, DC, on September 1, 1967. And today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Thema Bryant, PhD, president of the American Psychological Association (APA), reminded everyone about what the legendary civil rights leader had emphasized back then. In a statement issued on January 16 by the APA, Bryant mentioned that King, Jr., had “named the importance of never adjusting to certain societal issues, such as racial discrimination, violence, war and massive economic disparities. So, for this King holiday, let us commit to heeding Dr. King’s call for us to remain maladjusted to racism.”
Now, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines maladjusted as “lacking harmony with one’s environment from failure to adjust one’s desires to the conditions of one’s life.” That makes “maladjusted” out to be a bad thing. After all, the word “failure” typically has negative connotations. People don’t tend to say, “My performance evaluation said that I am failure but otherwise it was very positive.” Indeed, if the words “maladjusted” and “you are” come up right next to each during a date or a job interview, chances are things haven’t gone too well.
Nonetheless, during his 1967 address to the APA, King, Jr., explained, “You who are in the field of psychology have given us a great word. It is the word maladjusted. This word is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is a good word.” He went on to emphasize, “There are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will.”
What some of those things? King, Jr. listed them in his speech: “We must never adjust ourselves to racial discrimination and racial segregation. We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. We must never adjust ourselves to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.”
That would be the opposite of viewing racism, religious bigotry, economic inequities, physical violence, and a whole bunch of other “-isms” as a bunch of, “oh, those are just parts of life. Deal with it.” Too often those suffering discrimination and injustice feel that they themselves have to simply adapt to receiving less as the only means to survival. This would be like staying in the first half of a bullying movie like Mean Girls, The Karate Kid, Back to the Future, or Carrie. OK, maybe Carrie wouldn’t be the best example. But the point is that there can be a tendency to just accept one’s lot in life. Or tell others to do so.
Case in point, there’s that whole “Model Minority Myth” that Asian Americans have had to face for several decades. For example, a 2017 article by Andrew Sullivan for New York Magazine argued that “Today, Asian-Americans are among the most prosperous, well-educated, and successful ethnic groups in America. What gives? It couldn’t possibly be that they maintained solid two-parent family structures, had social networks that looked after one another, placed enormous emphasis on education and hard work, and thereby turned false, negative stereotypes into true, positive ones, could it?”
Was this was essentially a “shut up and adapt to having fewer opportunities” argument? Of course, Sullivan overlooked the fact that many Asian Americans have really not been that prosperous and successful. There are plenty of Asian Americans silently struggling with poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and unhappiness. Many Asian Americans don’t actually have solid two-parent family structures or other Asian Americans to look out for each other. It’s not as if Asian Americans have a Batphone where they can call other Asian Americans whenever they are mistreated at work or in social situations and drown their sorrows together in dim sum, sushi, bibimbap, or pad Thai, all of which by the way are delicious.
Moreover, such a “Model Minority” portrayal clumps together Asian Americans, who actually are extremely diverse, into what seems like one big homogenous block o’ cheese. This takes a lot away from each individual’s talents, abilities, and efforts.
Additionally, Sullivan’s argument didn’t address the reality that very few Asian Americans have made it to true leadership positions in the U.S. How many Asian Americans do you see serving in Congress, as Governors of states, atop Fortune 500 or big tech companies, as leaders of universities or medical centers, or as leading men or women in Hollywood movies that don’t involve martial arts?
Kat Chow addressed Sullivan’s piece in an article for NPR’s Code Switch, Race in Your Face entitled “’Model Minority’ Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks.” Chow essentially described Sullivan’s piece as a piece of you-know-what as the headline of the article really encapsulated what Chow wrote. In the article, Chow quoted Ellen D. Wu, PhD, an Asian-American studies professor at Indiana University, as describing the “Model Minority” myth as the Energizer Bunny, in that it keeps going and going and going, regardless of how many times Asian Americans refute it.
The whole “Model Minority” myth thing has shown that being adjusted to racism, religious bigotry, economic injustice, and other social injustices simply does not work. Instead, as Bryant urged, there needs to be more intentionality in eliminating racism. “This means moving from denial and avoidance to awareness, and then moving from awareness to active and consistent engagement in the dismantling of racism.” That’s where being maladjusted comes into play. When you are given a pair of pants or a skirt that is several sizes too small, you don’t simply say, “OK, I’m just going move real slow so that I don’t let it go.” You don’t accept the package, so to speak. Instead, you return that article of clothing and essentially say, “Let’s try this again.”
For society to advance, you can’t simply get comfortable with what’s been happening for your years. Imagine what would have happened had everyone become adjusted to things like outhouses, sundials, rotary telephones, smallpox, and the Teletubbies rather than continuously pushing for change.
