Yeah, praise of MLK from the Right was always a bad, awkward fit. They pretended to like the One Quote because it was the only thing out of Dr. King’s mouth that could conceivably have its meaning twisted enough to appear to support their anti-affirmative action, and now anti-CRT/DEI agenda.
So given where conservatives have been heading with Trump leading the charge -- which is right off a cliff into full-on fascism -- it’s predictable the Right feels like it’s a good time to redefine MLK from National Icon of Heroism to The Father Of (DEI) Lies. They want to make sure ALL the ground has been softened up.
Charlie Kirk's one of those guys I see him and I think" I hope that asshole gets a spot on his dick that won't go away and maybe one day, he's walking through busy downtown and is so worried about the spot on his dick that he doesn't pay attention to traffic and ends up getting hit by a car. "
I used to feel bad thinking that way but not so much anymore. I guess I hate them all but I hate some more than others. CK is pretty high on the list.
You probably don't know this about MLK, and the reason you don't know it is because I just made it up this morning. See how the liberal media deceives you? They didn't write about this thing I just made up this morning! Why? Because if you knew about this, you would know that there's no need for civil rights, or even to treat Black people civilly.
Grrr: by 4am, local wingers were posting "what about MLK's womanizing?".
Aaron McGruder's "The Bookdocks" provides the perpetually useful MLK Day gif:
A bowtied white guy says "I think if Martin Luther King were alive he'd -": and a folding chair bowls him over and Huey, McGruder's activist child hero leaps up to start punching him.
“...in which the Civil Rights Act and everything like it is an error to be eradicated.” And they have the Supreme Court to do it. Alito’s pseudo-originalism will say equality for nonwhite, non male, non land owners isn’t in the Founders’ Constitution and the amendments after the Civil War aren’t valid because women and Blacks didn’t vote for them and what self-contradiction? You’re the contradiction!
I am compelled, every time his name is mentioned, to note that Steven Crowder once voiced the Brain on the PBS series Arthur. Which is funny enough, but, because the Brain's family was black, he ended up singing a Kwanzaa song on their Christmas special. The world is so weird.
First these fascists appropriate MLK Jr.’s speeches for their own political agenda. Then they denigrate the guy by reiterating debunked nonsense and using his affairs as ad hominem attacks.
Now apparently, MLK Jr., was the racist and white nationalist’s are the victims.
Last week we talked about Haley’s comment that slavery wasn’t responsible for the Civil War. If anyone had any doubt before, they shouldn’t. Below is part of a speech from the “Cornerstone“ speech by Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.”--Alexander Stephen’s
They got years of mileage from claiming The One Quote in order to drown out everything else MLK ever said. Can't have the public knowing about the other stuff and taking it to heart. Misdirection always works on the crowd Jonathan Metzl writes about https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/
The most fitting MLK quote they’ll never know: "We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."
Damn, conservatives and conservatism sure have changed. Thinking about that makes me miss my mother (gone ten years next month), who thought MLK was a dangerous, disruptive radical and voted for George Wallace out of a deep need for stability in a time of social upheaval and personal precariousness. She liked Bill O'Reilly but believed Anita Hill. She had a tenth grade education and was bitter that "the blacks ruined Newark," but would listen when I explained that the Liberty City riots were caused by racist cops who brutally stomped and killed an average middle-class guy without cause. She was antisemitic until her late 80s when she went to an acquaintance's grandson's bar mitzvah and discovered that "they were just like us!" She was a good Christian and would have recoiled from Trump as a lewd vulgarian and a hypocrite.
I blame Ronald Reagan. the end of the Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk and Fox News for making it harder to be my mother's kind of conservative, and turning most of them into rabid, hateful parrots.
"But I don’t think Kirk’s slurs are meant for the majority of Americans."
Roy, as you've also noted over the years, people like Kirk, are primarily grifters working the marks by pandering to them.
Anyone taking their spiels seriously have what you call issues with truths and facts and reality and stuff.
It's pathological and enabled by mass media who fail or choose not to call them out.
Yeah, praise of MLK from the Right was always a bad, awkward fit. They pretended to like the One Quote because it was the only thing out of Dr. King’s mouth that could conceivably have its meaning twisted enough to appear to support their anti-affirmative action, and now anti-CRT/DEI agenda.
So given where conservatives have been heading with Trump leading the charge -- which is right off a cliff into full-on fascism -- it’s predictable the Right feels like it’s a good time to redefine MLK from National Icon of Heroism to The Father Of (DEI) Lies. They want to make sure ALL the ground has been softened up.
Soon:
"Pettis: A Bridge Too Far"
followed soon thereafter by
"What 'r black churches doin' stealin' our religion??!!"
Charlie Kirk's one of those guys I see him and I think" I hope that asshole gets a spot on his dick that won't go away and maybe one day, he's walking through busy downtown and is so worried about the spot on his dick that he doesn't pay attention to traffic and ends up getting hit by a car. "
I used to feel bad thinking that way but not so much anymore. I guess I hate them all but I hate some more than others. CK is pretty high on the list.
https://substack.com/@brawlatthepoetscafe/note/c-47338547?r=insr
You probably don't know this about MLK, and the reason you don't know it is because I just made it up this morning. See how the liberal media deceives you? They didn't write about this thing I just made up this morning! Why? Because if you knew about this, you would know that there's no need for civil rights, or even to treat Black people civilly.
Grrr: by 4am, local wingers were posting "what about MLK's womanizing?".
Aaron McGruder's "The Bookdocks" provides the perpetually useful MLK Day gif:
A bowtied white guy says "I think if Martin Luther King were alive he'd -": and a folding chair bowls him over and Huey, McGruder's activist child hero leaps up to start punching him.
“...in which the Civil Rights Act and everything like it is an error to be eradicated.” And they have the Supreme Court to do it. Alito’s pseudo-originalism will say equality for nonwhite, non male, non land owners isn’t in the Founders’ Constitution and the amendments after the Civil War aren’t valid because women and Blacks didn’t vote for them and what self-contradiction? You’re the contradiction!
https://hueyfreemanonlyspeaksthetruth.tumblr.com/post/73900745808/you-dont-get-to-use-martin-luther-king-jr-as/amp
I am compelled, every time his name is mentioned, to note that Steven Crowder once voiced the Brain on the PBS series Arthur. Which is funny enough, but, because the Brain's family was black, he ended up singing a Kwanzaa song on their Christmas special. The world is so weird.
First these fascists appropriate MLK Jr.’s speeches for their own political agenda. Then they denigrate the guy by reiterating debunked nonsense and using his affairs as ad hominem attacks.
Now apparently, MLK Jr., was the racist and white nationalist’s are the victims.
Last week we talked about Haley’s comment that slavery wasn’t responsible for the Civil War. If anyone had any doubt before, they shouldn’t. Below is part of a speech from the “Cornerstone“ speech by Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.”--Alexander Stephen’s
Need I say more? Happy MLK Jr. Day, all...:)
I vote stochastic terrorism.
Reminder that there is now a fence around the MLK Jr. family home because a mentally ill Black woman tried to set the house on fire last month (https://www.npr.org/2023/12/08/1218155405/woman-tries-to-set-fire-to-mlk-home). Was she influenced by (right-wing) voices?
Roy, I hope you make this column free, because people need to see it.
I can hear the anvil around our necks now ...
"I like civil rights leaders who don't get assassinated"
"I don't get it. What was in it for him?"
They got years of mileage from claiming The One Quote in order to drown out everything else MLK ever said. Can't have the public knowing about the other stuff and taking it to heart. Misdirection always works on the crowd Jonathan Metzl writes about https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/
The most fitting MLK quote they’ll never know: "We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."
Damn, conservatives and conservatism sure have changed. Thinking about that makes me miss my mother (gone ten years next month), who thought MLK was a dangerous, disruptive radical and voted for George Wallace out of a deep need for stability in a time of social upheaval and personal precariousness. She liked Bill O'Reilly but believed Anita Hill. She had a tenth grade education and was bitter that "the blacks ruined Newark," but would listen when I explained that the Liberty City riots were caused by racist cops who brutally stomped and killed an average middle-class guy without cause. She was antisemitic until her late 80s when she went to an acquaintance's grandson's bar mitzvah and discovered that "they were just like us!" She was a good Christian and would have recoiled from Trump as a lewd vulgarian and a hypocrite.
I blame Ronald Reagan. the end of the Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk and Fox News for making it harder to be my mother's kind of conservative, and turning most of them into rabid, hateful parrots.