I saw the "What if he had lived?" headline. That seems more appropriate for someone who, e.g., died early of cancer or in an accident. Not someone who, you know, was assassinated.
Every year for the last few years, around King's birthday there's been a number of articles/blog posts/comments about how much of a radical King was. I wonder how long it will take to become part of the King story "everyone" knows; certainly it's still something of a new story to many people.
(And no, I'm not writing this as a "it's old news to me comment" - I'm genuinely interested to see if the narrative around King changes, of if "King - more radical than many think" will always be part of it.)
I getting really sick of people criticizing Jeremiah Wright by saying that he is "divisive" in a way that King was not. "Oh, he isn't one of those *good* black preachers like Martin Luther King." The fact is these people would be all up in arms about how divisive King was if they were around then (and some were, and did.)
King called America the world's greatest war criminal. (He may have even been right.) That is about on a par with Wright's "God Damn America!"
The what-if-MLK-had-lived episode of the Boondocks (in which MLK is blacklisted from television post-9/11 for unacceptably pacifist views) is wonderful.
Every year for the last few years, around King's birthday there's been a number of articles/blog posts/comments about how much of a radical King was. I wonder how long it will take to become part of the King story "everyone" knows; certainly it's still something of a new story to many people.
Look to any primary school book having to do with "social studies" or history for your answer. If all kids are growing up thinking that MLK was the good negro, it will have to be a very powerful force to change that perception. Not without design, either.
King called America the world's greatest war criminal. (He may have even been right.) That is about on a par with Wright's "God Damn America!"
I see your point, but I could also see someone arguing that "God Damn" X for almost any value of X is an inappropriate statement for a minister.
(as a non-believer I can only make hypothetical arguments)
I can't listen to the linked audio right now, but I first saw that RFK speech on the Great American Speeches video, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Small clips (2-5 minutes) of everything from Douglas MacArthur to LaFollette to Barbara Jordan's gorgeous testimony at the Watergate hearings to Malcolm X's Easter speech in Harlem...really good stuff. Maybe it's on DVD by now.
2: It's 'everybody knows' for a certain segment of the population; university educated, a student of history or pathologically interested in reading speeches (the latter maybe just me.) But in lower levels , it's excerpts of the I Have a Dream speech, and that's pretty much it.
And my guess is had he lived, he would have ended up reviled.
And my guess is had he lived, he would have ended up reviled.
See JFK. They always say to quit while you're ahead...
This site has a lot of good speeches, with a fair amount of video and audio.
D at LGM said that King was planning to give a speech on April 7 entitled, "Why America May Go to Hell." Pretty close to "God Damn America."
Yglesias makes the interesting point that it may actually be better for King's legacy to be sanitized, since that's the only way he could have attained national hero status.
My sense is that was reviled in many circles by the time he died --that is even among those that had supported him when he was opposing segregation in the South. Many previously sympathetic white people felt that in opposing the Vietnam War he had gone too far. And he was despised as an Uncle Tom by the black radicals.
Speaking of the site in 11, this is video of RFK speaking. For some reason, it's subtitled in Italian.
Yup. A guy who is black, criticizes Northern whites, and stabs the Vietnam troops in the back is not a guy that gets taught as a hero to second graders.
That said, to some extent I think the creation of the King Myth and the displacement of the more authentic radical King is a good thing. ...Yglesias
This is why the politics of Peak Oil & Global Warming are hopeless. Only a socialist, fully egalitarian society can generate the human resources needed. MY might realize this and even agree, but believes the politics of the transition too expensive. Or thinks we have enough time. He is wrong, but is representative of the best.
So billions will die, instead of a few million in revolution.
EoT(A)W also has an RFK post up, with the speech presented over a photo montage.
18: Turns out that video I linked doesn't get the whole speech (but it provides the text) and mixes in audio from RFK's assassination at the end, which is unsettling in its own right.
EoT(A)W also has an RFK post up
As noted in the update to this post, actually.
17: Running the old roll through the player piano again, Bob? I think you missed a "managerial" and a "liberal" somewhere in there.
I think you missed a "managerial" and a "liberal" somewhere in there.
I think mentioning Yglesias by name covered those bases.
I am just not getting MY. Debs was a hero in the 20s and 30s , and had a NY Times best-seller written about him in the 50s. The "authentic" MLK was not a fringe figure in the 60s, the socialist anti-militarist King had a lot of allies.
I think "whatever happened to the Left" happened in the mid-70s instead of late 60s. The Nixon Democratic Congresses were good enough.
That first commenter on the MY thread looks familiar.
Yes, I'm trying to write a post that responds to Yglesias's claim that having a sanitized, deracinated King as part of American memory is better than no collective memory of the man at all. I thought it was going to be an easy post to write; then I remembered that I'm very dumb, which is a handicap.
Ooh, I just figured out how to make my point. Beyond, of course, ignoring what Yglesias actually said and instead arguing against some fictional version of his post that only exists in my head.
Two relevant links: McCain: Not Beloved by the Negroes; Institute for Policy Studies pdf about the state of black/white equality today.
"Whatever happened to the Left": when you think about it, the Nixon impeachment was all mainstream people: mostly newspapermen, lawyers, and people in government. The Left made a lot of noise 1963-1973, but once the American troops came home there was no follow up itnoan actual political movement. I just sort of fizzled. A lot of people fled from the craziness of it and just tried to patch their lives together.
And about that time, supposedly the captains of industry got together and agreed on a harder anti-union, anti-tax line. The Democrats lost three straight Presidential elections and went DLC after 1988.
As always, it is important to put MLK in context, by which I mean MLK rode a wave of revolutionary ideas in the 60s. I would bet strongly that he talked with Gregory & Carmichael, and less strongly that he read Fanon. Etc. MLK was part of a global movement(s), of which the US was not even the most interesting part.
I didn't get excited by leaders back then, either.
There is an article in the Smithsonian, The Unmaking of the President, on how the King assassination interacted with the remainder of LBJ's term. I had forgotten that it happened only a few days after LBJ withdrew from the race. It is by Clay Risen and I don't agree with some of his conclusions on how the remainder of LBJ's term would have gone otherwise, but it is worth a read for its synopsis of the events of the time and a look at how Johnson and King were viewed at the time and the intertwining of their legacies.
5: The problem isn't the primary school books; it's that most Americans still don't learn anything about black history beyond that.
And about that time, supposedly the captains of industry got together and agreed on a harder anti-union, anti-tax line.
I am not an economic determinist, in that I think economics is controllable and controlled. Blaming Greenspan & Friedman, the end of Bretton Woods, etc for the collapse of the Left would involve a series o long posts that Newberry has already written.
The suburbs, and the right-center politics of the suburbs, did not just happen. Why did RE become a low-risk investment anyway? "White Flight" was financed.
re 31: "I just sort of fizzled."
I just can't relate to that part of the comment.
Hey, that Prospect writer is my downstairs neighbor! Hi, Kai! Good job!
"Just as well sanitized, because that's how you get remembered" seems like pretty textbook question-begging.
(I feel terrible. I just told a non-Unfogged-reading pedant friend of mine that I was giving up on "begs the question", and then here I go using it.)
"Just as well sanitized, because that's how you get remembered" seems like pretty textbook question-begging.
Not just remembered, lauded. Malcolm X is remembered too.
The problem isn't the primary school books; it's that most Americans still don't learn anything about black history beyond that
fixed
This would be a good time for everyone to listen to Randy Newman's "Rednecks". (By request!)
Now your northern nigger's a Negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the nigger free
Yes he's free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he's free to be put in a cage on the South-Side of Chicago
And the West-Side
And he's free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And he's free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis
And he's free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And he's free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston
They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around
Keepin' the niggers down
17: So billions will die, instead of a few million in revolution.
'Cuz after the revolution everyone will get to be immortal. Yay!
So billions will die, instead of a few million in revolution.
I've never been able to figure out why we would assume that the revolution will be won by the people that *don't* have guns.
...a series o long posts that Newberry has already written....
Does Newberry produce another sort of post?
44:Just took a quick tour of some econblogs. Econbrowser just posted the chart on today's employment, Calculated Risk went a little further, Mish broke down many of the numbers.
None even attempted to say why employment was down. "Why" takes shelves of books.
Elvis was a hero to most...
I was asking these same questions 15 years ago. There was a poster on the door of our HS library with images MLK and MX and a syrupy injunction to vote! I'm not sure about MLK's stance on that question, but I'm fairly dubious that a surviving Malcolm X, post-Rodney King riots especially, would be exhorting the youth to get out the vote.
And of course, I became an election judge, proving that teenagers are indeed smarter than old people, just as I had suspected.
I'm just hoping that come November, we won't have recourse to Jesse Jackson's "Margin of Despair" speech. But we probably will. 'Cause everything is so fucked up.
Back to the Pleistocene!
Malcolm X really wanted blacks to get involved in the political process. He thought that if the black community went to the major political parties and said ``we have x million votes, if you do this'', then the major parties would listen.
I'm pretty sure he was keen on non-racist whites voting as well, reasoning along the same lines.
Bob's totally right in this thread - and in the car/oil/suburb thread, too, although I tend to think he's a bit of an optimist in that area generally.
This comment is one of the wryest things about getting older that I've ever read:
And of course, I became an election judge, proving that teenagers are indeed smarter than old people, just as I had suspected.
Does anyone have a link or a copy of the complete text of the MLK sermon "Why America May Go To Hell"? The sermon was rumored to being written by MLK the day of his assassination and supposedly to be delivered by MLK the Sunday after his assassination? Please send the link or text to my E-mail address provided? Thank you!