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_______________ Recent Posts: Is 66,000,000 a lucky number? What exactly does Tim Johnson do? Definitely a sign the end is near ... A watered down MLK on the rocks, please ...
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Friday, January 13, 2006
A watered down MLK on the rocks, please ...
 Monday is the annual Martin Luther King Holiday, where folks from all over the country will get the day off from school (I hope), or perhaps from work. Like most holidays, we'll probably forget to take the time to think about King and his legacy, but just in case you're interested the story of this holiday is pretty good.It turns out the ratification of this holiday marks the official moment when King was forever stolen from the left. The holiday was proposed in 1983, and the House quickly passed the measure by overwhelming majorit (390-60, I think). Senate debate was minimal, but centered around Jesse Helms' contentions that King was a communist and a radical. What is interesting is that the Democrats didn't agree. In fact, the Dems went out of their way to call Helms a liar, and declare his evidence suspect. Sen. Edward Kennedy denounced the Helms speech as "Red smear tactics" that should be "shunned by the American people." The news media agreed and called Helms all sorts of names. With the threat of appearing racist, the Republicans lined up to vote for MLK Day, and the rest is history. The problem was two-fold. First, Helms wasn't lying. King was know to associate with many communists, placed communists in charge of SCLC chapters, and was a strong supporter of labor unions. He was quite radical in his beliefs and his work. Remember, he was assassinated supporting a Sanitation Workers strike in Memphis - a far cry from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  The other part of the problem is that the Democrats refused to acknowledge this history. Instead of heralding King as a visionary leftist, the Democrats rolled over again and again to declare that King was not a radical at all.Thus, in a brilliant strategic maneuver on the part of the Republicans, endorsing a King holiday has effectively sanitized and defanged King's legacy. They can now claim King to be one of their own - in fact in '83 Pat Buchanan was heard talking about how King would disapprove of the second March on Washington (led by Jesse Jackson Jr.). Buchanan would know? Sure, because King wanted a country based on the "content of character" not the "color of skin". By clinging to this quote, Republicans are able to declare affirmative action as anti-King. Welfare as anti-King. Criticism of the prison system's inherent racism as anti-King. The list goes on and on.  No conservative would dare criticize the holiday now, because they want to show that they "get it" about black people in America. Yet conservatives will bend over backwards to create voucher systems that allow wealthy children to abandon their (often black) poorer brethren in public schools. They'll spend hours talking about the woes of affirmative action. They demand an end to welfare and other social programs that benefit millions of African-Americans. They are quick to point out that racism is "over" in this country. Is it?On Monday I'll be thinking about King and what he really stood for. Not just a country where folks aren't judged by the color of their skin, but a country that attempts to make up for past wrongs. 9 comments  
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