newsweek tweeting a picture of mlk dead is the latest example of white insensitivity to black death

On New Year’s Day, Newsweek published a compilation story meant to mark 2018 as the 50-year-anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. All well and good, right?

Except that the photo for the article featured MLK in a casket… dead.

As the Grio noted, “No one in the world knows exactly what Newsweek was thinking. To post a picture of a deceased Dr. King instead of a normal picture of him alive, is just mind-boggling.”

It seems Dr. King’s daughter Bernice King thought so as well, tweeting a response that seemed to indicate she was at a loss for words, to which Newsweek responded with an apology of sorts:

Earlier this afternoon we published an opinion piece with an insensitive image of Martin Luther King Jr. We sincerely apologize to the King family for this egregious error.

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) January 1, 2018

Last year, AFROPUNK writer Hari Ziyad wrote about how white liberals use Black death as spectacle in their own special brand of anti-Blackness, and that certainly seems to be the case here:

“Black death becomes less a call to awareness, more a titillating spectacle, using non-Black media and galleries to recreate images of it with no regard to the fact that they were once lives–once loved. Einstein once famously said ‘The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.’ This type of work does nothing but encourage more looking and nothing–more danger for Black people.”