‘HTGAWM’ Star Matt McGorry Shares Message For White People On MLK Day

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a lot of celebrities paid tribute to the Civil Rights leader on social media. However, “How to Get Away With Murder” star Matt McGorry did something different - he shared an enlightening message to white people.

He posted a video on Twitter and started with a popular quote made by King. “Darkness cannot drive out our darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” he said. When he shared that quote, a woman of color asked why white people always prefer that quote. Initially, McGorry felt really defensive.

“The thing that I didn’t realize was white people often only post quotes like this that are apolitical, and then we refuse to engage in a critical way with white supremacy,” he said. “Because when I can post about love driving out the love and saying, ‘Oh, I do feel love, I have a lot of love,’ and, ‘I hate racism, I hate the Ku Klux Klan,’ then it actually lets me off the hook from thinking deeper and more critically about the ways that I can work to end white supremacy in my own life, in myself, between my friends and my family… There’s white supremacy everywhere, and it’s well worth investigating and dismantling everywhere.”

So McGorry took into account the woman’s question and decided to share a different quote from King that would get white people “critically engaged.” The quote goes: “Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

McGorry explained that whites need to honor King’s legacy by continuously educating myself to become a “better ally” against racism, and to “amplify the voice of people of color.” He added that he needs to “investigate how white supremacy shows up in my own life, among my friends and my family, and to really actually be active, to get out in the streets in a way, that if you read Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham jail, you will see very clearly outlined that this was not a guy who was afraid of tension, and in fact, he said that we needed tension.”