It's become a familiar semantic game, particularly in the wake of controversy over Hillary Clinton's comments seeming to minimize Martin Luther King Jr.'s importance in achieving civil rights gains in the 1960s.
Still, as we all head to breakfasts and parades today celebrating the birth of the nation's greatest civil rights leader, it is a question worth asking. WWMT: What Would Martin Think?
The thought came to me watching news accounts on Clinton supporter Bob Johnson, a black man who made $1 billion cynically pandering to black viewers through his Black Entertainment Television, clumsily trying to make an argument against Barack Obama that the former First Lady never could.
It's something that's happened with increasing regularity as the South Carolina primary approaches, with its huge black vote. Established black leaders who know the Clintons will owe them big if they move black voters away from Barack Obama have begun taking potshots -- from Johnson and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to Rev. Al Sharpton, civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).
Here's what Johnson said, while trying to avoid the apology he eventually delivered for a ham-handed insult referring to Barack Obama's admitted past drug use: "We've always said we need a perfect, well-spoken, Harvard-educated black candidate who would prove we've transcended race. Well, now we've got him and nobody knows how to campaign against him."
So, now that there's the kind of candidate for president folks like Martin Luther King probably dreamed about in 1964, the first black American billionaire thinks it makes sense to take him down?
I also wonder what Dr. King would make of the dustup over Golf Week magazine's decision to feature a noose on its front cover. According to blogger and Men's fitness editor in chief Roy Johnson, the magazine's now-fired editor initially wanted to create the image placing a noose around the neck of a suspended TV personality who said in a fleeting joke that Tiger Woods should be lynched by younger golfers hoping to match him.
I didn't write about the initial comment when it happened because it seemed like an ill-chosen joke, not a pattern of discrimination worthy of dissection. But Golf Week's decision compounded the mistake by amplifying the central error -- refusing to acknowledge or respect the intense power nooses and lynching have always had in our racial history. Fortunately, one of the magazine's biggest advertisers, which Roy says pulled serious dollars after the noose cover hit newsstands, understands the power of symbol much better.
And what might our greatest civil rights advocate make of how certain male pundits have treated Clinton herself?
The liberal watchdog Web site Media Matters has gathered a damning litany of references MSNBC host Chris Matthews has made about Clinton -- comments centered on her gender which seem to alternate between patronizing and pejorative.
Matthews in particular has been a lightning rod for this kind of criticism, both for being tone deaf to how awful some of his comments sound (though he did recently apologize for implying Clinton's entire political career stems from sympathy over her husband's infidelity) and for his longstanding resistance to admitting any wrongdoing.
He sounds like somebody from the 1950s trying to get used to liberated women. But at a time when we have a female House Speaker, female Secretary of State and a female front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, this stuff just can't go on.
At least, that's what I hope Martin Might Think.
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As for what Dr. King would say, I have to wonder if he would be disappointed by the fact that the enormously African American candidate has never used his celebrity to call attention to problems that continue to plague the black community. For example, persistent housing and employment discrimination. Or the pervasive voting rights abuses that have resulted in two stolen elections. Even with his reportedly wry sense of humor, I doubt he would appreciate the fact that for this black man, personal ambition seems to be a far more powerful motivator than a hunger for justice.
It's your opinion and guessing, not facts that you are presenting.
Obama, meanwhile, holds his fire until October, and when he fires, it comes more and more from the right. Check out his policies. Most of them are appreciably to the right, or they have enough fudges that the independents and Republicans will come to the polls either to destroy Mrs. Clinton or to support a real moderate -- even a DLC'er. Meanwhile, because of his color, the Huff Post presumes he's to the left. Hillary makes a common-sense observation, not about LBJ vs. King, but LBJ AND King, about the contributions of the movement and the politician, and racial attacks begin on her. Of course, never coming from Obama himself.
Pretty clever strategy, Obama. My only problem is, I don't know you well enough to trust that, if you get elected, will you be a leftist or a phony Bloomberg bs'er? Who's the real you?
Of the leading 3, he'd probably pick Edwards because Edwards is pro-little-guy. Both Obama and Clinton are pro-big-corporation - all you have to do is look who's funding their campaigns to see this.
I am quite white, but can recognize that some of my own past comments had racist implications. This is despite not seeing that at the time nor having any racist intent when I made them. I lack the perspective/experience that makes race significant to me, but that should not put me in denial that others still suffer the consequences of the rediculous concept of "race."
The mere use of the term "race card" suggests a very real bigotry by the whites that use it so loosely. It is - in a very underhanded way - a denial of the significance that race still plays in the U.S. It makes race something that is "played" in the "game" of media-savviness, rather than a real substantive issue that still divides us and effects the lives of many.
Until we realize that there is no "race" but human, that the categories of "race" have no basis in fact, that they are pure social constructs assembled due to in-group/out-group prejudices, we will always be a "racist" society.
MLK Jr. would be thinking, "Why does Huffington Post keep giving Earl Hutchinson a platform to convince people that they can never make it in life even as a black man is the front runner for the presidential nomination? Make sure that Earl fella stays away from me. His negativity is like a cancer."
True that.
Today it seems much more important what Oprah thinks.
"No longer the choice between non-violence and violence it is the choice of non-violence or non-existence"
"I've Been to the Mountain Top"-MLK
Something to hold onto.
Over the bleached bones of American Imperialism, the pathetic words will someday be uttered, "too late."
Kucinich stands for peace and for universal health care (in other words equal coverage for ALL people) among other things. He's the only candidate who has stood for what's right and called for impeaching Bush. He has the kind of integrity that Dr. King had and the kind of compassion and basic decency that are what really lead to change.
Here's some more information about him. We need to stop the media from telling us who we can choose and choose the people who will do the most for the country.
Judy Woodruff on PBS has interviewed all the candidates from both parties. Here is her converation with Kucinich.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/kucinich_10-04.html
Excellent articles about him:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-emin/civics-lessons-for-dummie_b_75316.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-penn/piano-wire-puppeteers-th_b_75829.html
From the Atlantic Free Press, http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2888/81/
And here's a piece by Studs Terkel that was in The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020506/terkel
and another one at
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Authors/BrassCheckJournal_Terkel.html
Gore Vidal on Kucinich:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/2856