Thursday, February 09, 2006

What would Martin Luther King have done?

The Bush supporters seem to have worked themselves up into a frenzy of righteous indignation over Coretta Scott King's funeral. Please. Spare me the hue and outcry from the same people who last September were mocking the impoverished and largely black population of New Orleans for being too dumb or too lazy to get out of harm's way in the wake of Katrina. Deliver me from the people like Jonah Goldberg who make jokes about people drowning in the Superdome and the legions of like minded cretins who condemned desperate people as savages and looters for trying to survive. The same people that are against affirmative action and for the elimination of "entitlement programs" like Medicare and food stamps.

And I don't want to hear about manners either. Via Cadillac Tight, this piece from Mary Mitchell, whom Donnie says is an African-American columnist who is no friend to President Bush. The last line reads,
"If politicians and civil rights leaders wanted to call Bush out, they should have called him at the White House."
Therein lies the problem. Sure it was bad manners, but Jack Grant is right, there is no other forum. We've been calling at the White House, and no one answers. They just listen in on what we say to each other. The media won't play it straight. CNN edited out the standing ovation for Lowrey, for instance.

I think if Martin Luther King had lived to make that eulogy, he would done the same at the funeral as a tribute to her work. I think Coretta would have been proud that he did. Both their lives were dedicated to fighting for their people, for the civil rights that the man on the stage is trampling daily.

I remember MLK making the I Have a Dream speech. I remember his assassination. Had he lived I think he would have been horrified to see what has happened to his dream under this administration and would have fought against it in any way he could.

The Kings were politically driven people. They would have wanted their message to be heard. And frankly. I'll be more impressed by this new found interest in proper decorum at an African-American activist's funeral when the rightwingers start standing up against Bush's proposed budget cuts and other policies that hurt this population of Americans the most. That's what Martin Luther King would have been doing and that's what Coretta cared about as well.
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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said

12:44:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the encouragement Heretik.

11:20:00 AM  

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