Maybe times have changed, but this is excusing and not at all accurately characterizing the people I saw looting Nike, Best Buy, and Walmart. It was naked theft under the cover of "equity." I want to know whether MLK was principled, or a politician making excuses. I'll do more research.
This sentence is particularly egregious.
To see MLK just come straight out and say black people don't target institutions because they don't care about changing them kind of defeats any legitimate argument for rioting.
The problem with the MLK quote is that he is just confirming what every racist white person thinks, institutional racism isn't a thing black people just want free shit and are willing to resort to violence to get it.
Looting another citizen is much harder to justify the legitimacy of, disguising looting as rioting makes it easier to do so.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mlk+thoughts+on+riots
I am assuming your comment was in good faith, although it's odd for an HN user to ask a question that could be answered by a simple google search.
I also note your highly loaded language of "race wars" which is not the same thing as a what everyone else is talking about in this thread.
The term "race wars" is a term that is frequently used by online right-wing agitators in order to derail discussions and push people's buttons. I'm not saying you're doing that, I am saying that it's not possible to distinguish your post from a post written by a ultra-right troll.
How do I know this? Because in college I was trained by right-wing activist to use exactly that type of language in order derail conversations.