A richer view of the world: We're suckers for parts of Dr. King's first book, Stride Toward Freedom, his memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott.
Still and all, this may be our favorite quotation from Dr. King:
DR. KING (2/4/68): Everybody can be great. Because everybody can serve.Today, we prefer to roll our eyes at "low information voters." Does the world remember and revere Dr. King because he wasn't like us?
You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
"And stop clinging to religion and guns," Dr. King continued.
ReplyDeleteA pretty anti-intellectual quote. If you don't know HOW to serve, a good-hearted person can do a lot of harm out of ignorance. Love isn't enough.
ReplyDeleteWhen you idealize a figure like King, you disappear all the aspects of his humanity that made him real. He wasn't like me in so many ways besides skin color. I wouldn't want to be him despite his belated sainthood. Today, I prefer to roll my eyes at the demand that we worship King as penance for white sins. The more King is revered, the less the collective movement to achieve civil rights is acknowledged and the more quickly the value of steady progress by white and black people striving together is forgotten.
"I wouldn't want to be him despite his belated sainthood."
DeleteNo worries. Getting murdered for helping the least among us, isn't something I could ever see happening to you.
Thank Dog Michael Brown was a hoodlum, lest you get stuck having to explain why the city of Ferguson's (and many other places around the USA ) used generations of economic apartheid to pay for their municipality.
DeleteThere are too many people helping the least among us who are not murdered to assume that is why he was killed.
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MLK represented at least two dominant goals:
ReplyDelete1. Advancement of blacks (obviously)
2. Color-blindness. ("I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.")
IMHO people today celebrate MLK Day a lot more for #1 than for #2.
Let me know when we get to #2, DinC.
DeleteBTW, we haven't even reached his less dominant (in your eyes) goals like helping the least among us.
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DeleteYou've been played David in Cal. Actually, King had transitioned to being a poor and working class people's advocate and an anti-imperialist. Oh course the powers that be don't want you to know that DiC, and they've drilled a different story into your consciousness [LINK].
DeletePlease give an example of MLK helping the least white people among us.
Delete@7:16 PM, is that one for me? Let me google mlk working poor real quick. Here's the first link on that search page [LINK].
DeleteA plan isn't action. Where does it say he did anything to benefit white people distinct from black people? Everyone understands that poverty and race are conflated in our society. Doing things to aid the poor is not doing things to help anyone white. It is doing things to help black people because black people are more likely to be poor. I just don't see anything in his words or actions to show that he was transcending his own race by helping those who were not black.
DeleteJust because these are the handier stats:
Deletep. 13 Table 3 People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics: 2013 and 2014 [LINK]
In the U.S. in 2014 more than 26% of all blacks were living in poverty, that was 10.75 million people.
In the U.S. in 2014 10% of all non-Hispanic whites (those are the whites you're talking about, right?) were living in poverty, that was 19.65 million people.
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DeleteMy point is that MLK would never advocate for anything that would only benefit white people, but white people are supposed to advocate for things that specifically and only benefit black people (e.g.black lives matter but all lives don't). Black people put black interests first. So did MLK and the minute he didn't, he would lose his influence as a leader. The deep suspicion in the black community that anyone white cares about their interests cuts both ways.
DeleteJust curious, give me a for instance of what MLK might have advocated for that would have benefited only whites. And can you explain to me why a group focused on white interests would have been in need of a black activist to champion their cause back in the 50s and 60s? (By the way, I take it that since you posted a minute after I put up that link to Cornel West's comments you didn't follow it and therefore are uninformed as to whether King took on the black Establishment in his own day.)
DeleteI get it that you're an advocate for racial solidarity for members of the dominate racial group in this society. You think the many should exploit the few, a variation of the insatiable cruelty the Athenians developed a taste for, "that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." [LINK] I happen to think an embrace of that philosophy, on balance, has been highly detrimental to the economic interests of underclass whites for a couple of hundred years. However, I do understand that there are people like you who find that philosophy irresistible.
What I don't understand is why you think there's some sort of ethical symmetry here.
I don't agree with much of what you characterize as my views. I object to canonizing as a saint for all people someone who was mainly interested in advancing civil rights. I think black people, like all people, can advance their interests through education and participation in society, not through whining, demands for set asides, evocation of white guilt or racism against others. MLK would agree and would probably cringe at BLM (privately). Black racism is as ugly as white racism. I don't see a white majority as you do. I see diversity within the mainstream. Black people don't.
DeleteForgot to say -- Cornell West is an idiot.
Delete"Where does it say he did anything to benefit white people distinct from black people?"
DeleteI would argue that a society segregated by race, and in opposition to equal protection and basic civil rights for some, leaves EVERYONE diminished. King, and countless others did this country as a whole a great service.
"Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." ---Jesus Christ
DeleteOops. Jesus Christ was also black.
It is inarguable that MLK did a great deal to help black people. You have to understand the hatred many black people feel toward white people to understand why it matters whether MLK did anything to help anyone beyond his own race. I think Somerby's assertion that MLK is a universal symbol of peace and love needs to clear that hurdle. I am unimpressed that MLK accepts those who are undereducated. I want to see some acceptance of those who oppose his goals. When Somerby talks about accepting those low information voters, he is also asking that we accept those who hold the views that arise from low information, those who hurt our interests, those with no love toward ourselves.
Deleteat 9:19 AM writes [my emphasis]:
Delete[QUOTE] ...it matters whether MLK did anything to help anyone beyond his own race. I think Somerby's assertion that MLK is a universal symbol of peace and love needs to clear that hurdle. I am unimpressed that MLK accepts those who are undereducated. I want to see some acceptance of those who oppose his goals.... [END QUOTE]
Would any of this suggest King "cleared that hurdle"? [LINK]
"I am unimpressed that MLK accepts those who are undereducated. I want to see some acceptance of those who oppose his goals."
DeleteIf you take even a small dollop of the time you are wasting arguing over what you apparently so vehemently oppose -- a mythical supposed canonization of King as a saint -- and instead devote it to actually learning what the the man said and did, you will very rapidly discover that King routinely, publicly, in word and deed accepted even those who opposed him.
I don't think Dr. King was setting the bar as low as you are, Bob.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't say "you don't have to know the candidate's basic positions or even who they are prior to entering the voting booth."
I don't think anybody who says the phrase "low information voters" is criticizing them for their lack of knowledge of Aristotle.
"I don't think anybody who says the phrase "low information voters" is criticizing them for their lack of knowledge of Aristotle."
ReplyDeleteSometimes we are judging them for being ignorant enough to believe activists and candidates who tell them there is epidemic racist police brutality, epidemic campus racism, racist culture, epidemic rape, rape culture. Some are not bad people, just gullible with a need to identify as victims.
That's ridiculous. There's no such thing as racism in America*.
Delete* If you're white.
"Some are not bad people, just gullible with a need to identify as victims."
DeleteYup. They're running for the GOP Presidential nomination.
BTW, those who identify as victims often want Daddy government to save them.
Screw 'em. Let 'em take out ISIS on their own.
@2:38 is as ignorant as Nikki Haley. Ask anyone who is Hispanic, Italian, Irish, Eastern European (Hungarian, Polish, Russian), Greek whether there is racism against white people. These ethnicities and nationalities were all considered "races" for purposes of discrimination. In the lifetimes of some of the older commenters here. Some of these people are still being called "low information voters" out of bigotry.
DeleteSome amount of bigotry will always exist -- by all groups against all groups. But, it's so much less than it once was. Today, bigotry doesn't keep any group from moving into a neighborthood, getting into college, getting hired, starting a business, or getting elected as it once did. I think Americans should celebrate MLK Day by taking pride in what we have accomplished.
DeleteYou forgot the Supreme Court rolling back the Voting Rights Act, DinC.
DeletePuff your chest out, little man.
"Some amount of bigotry will always exist..."
DeleteDinC's Conservative bona fides are circling the toilet after admitting that truth.
I see Trump is celebrating MLK Day at Liberty University, a place that supported apartheid in a huge and classy, classy way.
ReplyDeleteBTW, did he steal that dog whistle from Reagan's grave?
I don't think we should hold organizations of today responsible for values they no longer hold. Don't forget it was Democrats who instituted and maintained Jim Crow and fought against school integration.
DeleteThat's like saying don't forget it was Catholics who burned heretics at the stake.
DeleteExactly my point, 8:57. Liberty University, Democrats and Catholics of today shouldn't be blamed because other people identifying themselves with those labels in the past did bad things.
DeleteYour defense of Muslims in the face of ISIS is duly noted, DinC.
DeletePreach it to your fellow travelers.
Islam expressly encourages killing innocent people "for the right reasons." Christianity doesn't.
DeleteISIS isn't a Muslim group. They just use Muslims rubes to do their dirty work.
DeleteJust like the GOP isn't Christian, they just use the Christian rubes to do their dirty work.
I refuse to blame the Christian religion for electing people to cut food stamp programs and poison the drinking water of the people of Flint.
You people act like you were born this morning with your lack of understanding of the world around you.
" refuse to blame the Christian religion for electing people to cut food stamp programs and poison the drinking water of the people of Flint."
DeleteMy point being, it's not their religion that makes them nasty pieces of shit.
The Mayor of Flint is a Democrat.
DeleteI'm shocked you know so little about what happened in Flint, since the victims were poor and minorities, David.
DeleteNo, not shocked, what's the word for the opposite of shocked?
It figures that someone who thought you don't have to actually know anything about Plato or Aristotle would feel entitled to plagiarize his dissertation.
ReplyDelete"Today we roll our eyes at liberals, professors, young people, graduates of universities and colleges other than Harvard, women, other liberals, progressives, ...."
ReplyDeleteFTFY
I wouldn't exactly call today's low-information voters, "souls generated by love." More like souls degenerated by Foxy Blonde News.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't exactly call today's low-information voters, "souls generated by love." More like souls degenerated by Foxy Blonde News.
ReplyDeleteThey are the souls generated by love. I know - I break bread with them every day. I know how you feel though.
DeleteEchoing Somerby's complaints about journalism, Jeralyn (Talkleft) said this yesterday:
ReplyDelete"Yes, Congress is beholden to special interests, but that doesn't mean the entire United States Government or United States Congress is corrupt as Bernie claims. Even if it were, it would be far beyond the ability of any individual President to fix it. Only the electorate can change Congress, and it does so by voting out the members of Congress it believes to be corrupt, who pass laws the public finds objectionable or who fail to pass reforms the public deems critical, and electing other Congresspersons in their stead.
Bernie Sanders, if elected President, will have zero ability to change who serves in Congress. It will be two years until there's another election. Presidents have no personal impeachment power. And as we have seen time and again, a President's support for a certain legislative position is no guarantee Congress will vote for legislation he endorses, or against legislation he finds objectionable."
So your point is the US government isn't as corrupt as Bernie says it is, and to prove it you point out the President has zero ability to guarantee Congress will vote for legislation that isn't corrupt.
DeleteSomewhere in there you made a point. Let me know when you find it.
Jeralyn's points were (1) we don't have real corruption in the US, and (2) Bernie is promising change he cannot deliver due to limits on presidential power and the way govt works. You can guess whether he knows that and is being deceptive or is a deluded fool.
DeleteWe just saw Wall Street crash the world's economy through fraud, and no one has been charged with a crime. Can Jeralyn explain how this isn't real corruption?
DeleteBernie is promising change, if he can get the support of the people of this country. He didn't say he could do it alone.
If I'm mistaken, perhaps you and/ Jeralyn can point to when Bernie said he alone as President can make these changes.
You and Jeralyn, being deceptive or deluded fools?
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