What makes this particular Tea Party rally so offensive is that Palin and Beck are purposefully stirring up simmering racial hatred by holding their despicable charade on the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. King's speech, as most American school children are still taught in history classes, was one of the nation's highwater marks, a call for racial equality and social reform.
King's speech, which was witnessed by more than 200,000 people on the National Mall, historically has been regarded as the pinnacle of the civil rights movement, which eventually ended the segregation of public schools in the South and established voting rights for people of color. Along side of Lincoln's own "Gettysburg Address", it stands as one of the most stirring and important rhetorical moments in the history of the nation.
U.S. Representative John Lewis (D.-Ga.) also spoke that day at the Lincoln Memorial as president of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Later recalling King's most famous moment, he said: "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."
Beck and Palin's appropriation of August 28th to hold their rally is no accident. Both of them know this date resonates for people of color and for Democrats, who enjoy a heavy advantage in their voter ranks among people of color. They know race will play a huge factor in the 2010 mid-term elections. They know this will cause glee and play to the vile sentiments of their most conservative supporters, who still bristle at the election of the nation's first African-American president.
While Rupert Murdoch's Fox News castigates the NAACP as "racists" and smear Shirley Sherrod with lies and fabrications, Beck and Palin are doing all they can to play the racism card before the November elections.
Is there even one level-headed, morally outraged Republican who will call this rally what it is: a disgraceful attempt to bait African Americans into a civil disturbance and start a race war?
If Jim Gerlach wants to win the hearts and minds of moderate Chester County Republicans and registered Democrats who are unhappy with the direction the nation is going, now would be a good time to call out Palin and Beck. Would he lose support among the most conservative members who support him? If he's smart, he would say: "Good riddance."
Now, more than ever, his party needs a fresh new voice. The race baiters are running the show.
The hilarious thing is that, publicly at least, Palin and Beck admire MLK, but they admire the phoney, white-washed, de-radicalized version of King that is passed off as the real thing. He's just a sentimental figure to them that they cynically conjure up.
ReplyDeleteThey would hate King passionately if he were preaching today. Here are some quotes from the real Dr. King:
"We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor."
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
"Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
"It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society."
"Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness — justice."
"I endorse [The Supreme Court's decision to ban school prayer]. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right."
"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: 'This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: 'This is not just.'"
Are these quotes from MLK or Rev. Wright?
--Luke Stromberg