Important headline for April 5th - MLK Myth
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50 Yrs After His Murder, It's Time to Kill the Myth of MLK Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald
Excerpt: There is a myth some of us cherish, and it goes like this: There used to be racism in this country, a distant and benighted time about which it’s best not to talk and impolite to even recall. Then Martin Luther King organized a boycott, led some marches and gave a speech about a dream. And ever since, equality has reigned.
It’s a silly myth because it ignores the reams of evidence and towers of testimony proving that racism continues to stunt, blunt and take the lives of people of color.
It’s an offensive myth because it reduces King to an anodyne figure harmless enough to be embraced by conservatives who conveniently forget that while he was here, they stood against everything he stood for.
And it’s a dangerous myth because it allows the willfully, woefully gullible to believe we have won the battle for social justice when, in truth, we have yet to seriously engage it.
Yet, the forces that killed him use this myth to kill our memory of the provocative, radical, progressive prophet and preacher that he was. So successful have they been that Glenn Beck, with a straight face, claimed the mantle of King a few years ago; so successful, that some people are indignant when it is pointed out to them that Colin Kaepernick is actually following King’s example; so successful that King’s youngest child, Bernice, recently tweeted how someone told her that her father “didn’t offend people.”
All this is foolishness, but the foolishness exists because we allow it to, because we fail to vote like we could, teach, organize and agitate like we should.
So 50 years after King was killed, police still get away with murder. People working full-time jobs still can’t feed themselves. We still take “necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” Our children are still ground up by unnecessary war. African Americans are still last hired, first fired, still disproportionately poor, sick, undereducated and killed.
Also, Jeff Sessions is attorney general and Donald Trump, president.
Hot Take: Leonard Pitts is a very intelligent man and a brilliant writer. Unfortunately he's decided to use his talent and ability to perpetuate hateful, broad-based demonstrably false rhetoric. Decode what he's doing here and you get the following...
Conservatives today are the racists who fought King's mission of equality
Police officers commit murder but get away with it due to racism & Colin Kapernick is leading in the spirit of MLK Jr.
It's possible to work full-time and not have enough money for food
Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions are racists
Perhaps it's time to remind Mr. Pitts of the actual facts. Lincoln was a Republican. Jefferson, Lee & co. were Democrats. The KKK was founded by and run by Democrats. The only elected representatives that were members of the KKK were Democrats. On the actual Civil Rights Act here was the vote breakdown:
80% of Republicans in the US House voted for it compared to 63% of Democrats
82% of Republicans in the US Senate voted for it compared to 69% of Democrats
So keep on lying Leonard.
And Colin Kaepernick isn't a bigoted hypocrite who allowed himself to be protected by police officers but wore clothing depicting them as pigs (real King like btw, not to mention he wasn't even registered to vote) and cops themselves are at times racists killers evidently protected by a racist legal system. The average person on government assistance has a car, premium TV service, a smart phone and off course SNAP for food but somehow, it's possible to work full-time and not put food on the table (and it's the fault of the society that pays for those benefits). And yeah of course the AG and President are racists, because yeah, and that naturally means the voters too right?
That column is everything that's wrong with those driven by a chip on a shoulder and political agenda. It's false, it's hateful and it's to advance it in the hopes that those who're ignorant will fall into the trap. Not here, not on my watch. Unfortunately, racism is alive and well. Evil's been around since Adam and Eve & will be as long as humanity is. Lying about it doesn't improve the unfortunate reality.
Until tomorrow...