It’s ironic America’s first black president, who has done nothing but further polarize race relations in this country, would use the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington to reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy. President Barack Obama isn’t worthy of clinging to King’s coat tails much less elevating himself to same stratosphere of King.
King used race to right wrongs and genocide committed against blacks in America while Obama uses race for his own self-aggrandizement to win elections, raise his poll numbers and feed his ego. Two very different men. Obama is NOT the next King and never will be.
In his August 28, 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech, King said America had “defaulted on its promissory note,” of equality to blacks. Standing before a sea of 250,000 people of all colors “lining the edges of the reflecting pool beneath the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and stretching back to the Washington Monument (Shocking the Conscience, p.224), King demanded Congress pay its debt to blacks which Democrats had denied for decades. “And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”
King’s message was clear that day and every day he fought during the civil rights movement, he wanted blacks to be treated as equals, not as inferiors, to whites! He wanted blacks “not to be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character” and to access the same opportunities as whites based upon the reality we are all equal. That hot day in August, blacks “were demanding—freedom, jobs housing, desegregated schools, first class citizenship, the fight to vote, equal access to all public accommodations, an end to police brutality and that Congress pass the pending civil rights bill,” (Shocking the Conscience, p. 224).
This is the exact opposite of what Barack Obama and Democrats’ fight for blacks 50 years after King’s speech. Obama’s fight against voter ID laws, speaking out on the Trayvon Martin case, among other issues makes blacks the perpetual victims, inferior to whites, incapable of being held to the same standard of personal responsibility without some government assistance. King, Freedom Riders, Emmett Till, and the four young girls killed by a bomb that exploded in Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, didn’t die so blacks like Obama could make excuses for why blacks are failing now to participate equally in America.
King would be horrified the way liberal blacks and race baiters like Al Sharpton are constantly making excuses why violence and out of wedlock births is pervasive among blacks. The breakdown of the black family is the root cause of the economic disparity between blacks and whites. The only way “economic justice” will be brought to the black race is when we start valuing marriage again.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,” urged King in his Dream speech.
Sadly, dignity is far removed from discussions on race today. After a jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in cold blood, Obama blamed Martin’s death on racial profiling. Yet, Obama was silent on the killing of white Australian Christopher Lane by two young black teens and one white teen, who helped them. Rather than acknowledging black men are committing most of the killing in America, Obama continues to feed blacks the lies they want to hear to keep the support of his most loyal, blind constituents. After all when it comes to Obama and blacks, it’s about the color of his skin not the content of his character.
King also would have surely shed tears over the comparison of Emmett Till to a wanna be teen thug like Trayvon Martin. Martin pursued a fight with George Zimmerman, which lead to his death. Emmett Till was killed for being black.
My Mom and Dad grew up in segregated south, endured being called niggers, sitting in the back of buses, and fought against this inhumane treatment. I was raised with stories of “the struggle.” My parents sued the all white Salisbury Country Club in Richmond, Virginia in 1977 because they denied their family membership because of the color of their skin. This was the first time the neighborhood club denied a family access Eventually, my parents won the case on appeal but we never stepped foot in that racist club. It wasn’t about the membership; it was about being viewed as equals.
MSNBC’s Toure Neblett tweeted about me:
Couldn't help but notice @GOPBlackChick wasn't at the March on Washington. Not sure if it's cuz she hates freedom or Dr. King or what.
What I hate is marches and people who distort King’s legacy. I live King’s Dream and the dream my parents raised me to have every single day of my life. The dream I can achieve whatever I want in America thanks to people like King.
Instead of using racial moments to nurture a victimization mentality among blacks, Obama should start telling blacks to climb the mountaintop, let freedom ring and seize the Dream. But that would require Obama to speak honestly on race and think of something bigger than himself. The only thing connecting King and Obama is the Nobel Peace Prize. And that's even a stretch. One earned his award. The other received it for the color of his skin. Yet, Obama puts himself in the company of Kings.
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