MLK must be dizzy...
... from spinning in his grave, considering some of the racial comments that have been made over his namesake holiday weekend.
Exhibit #1:
"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country"
and
"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans — the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."
-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181851,00.html
_____________________________
OK, for one thing, I cannot tolerate the idea that Pat Robertson (or whoever the evangelist-of-the-moment was who said it) gets lampooned in the "media" for suggesting that God might be punishing Ariel Sharon with a stroke for giving up the West Bank, but Nagin is ignored for making basically the same kind of (ass)ertion. What on earth is he smoking that makes him say some of the stuff he says? Pat Robertson is crazy, but nobody elected him Mayor....
Mister Nagin? Sorry to interrupt, but Marion Barry is on line one....
But I digress. I wanted to spew about race, so on to Exhibit 2:
The House "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about..."It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard." "We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
Sentator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in a speech to the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181836,00.html
_______________________________________________
The civil rights movement in the United States is over. There is absolutely nothing more that can be done for "black" people. "Whites" are, as much as possible, OVER the color-of-skin issue. No more progress can be made until black people stop paying so much attention to their skin color. We can't get any further past it until they stop beating the skin-color drum.
The fact the Nagin and Clinton are still willing to stoop to that level only perpetuates the remaining race problem in our country. Their comments are pure pandering, and do absolutely nothing to move black people - or "white" people, for that matter - forward.
Never mind that their comments - both of them - did nothing to suggest ways to improve problems. Whether it's the ludicrous suggestion that a city - any city - needs to be primarily made up of a particular demographic OR using a plantation as a metaphor for political corruption... That's race-baiting pure and simple. Not to mention the plantation metaphor may very well be the weakest, worst, most obnoxious metaphor ever presented.
Now, for Exhibit 3:
"I have a dream that my four little 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."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
_http://members.aol.com/klove01/marquote.htm_______________________________________________________
Until politicians with no shame stop using race as a means to an end (i.e. an election), Dr. King's dream will never - ever - be realized. I submit that it's impossible to judge a man's character when that man is conscious of nothing but the color of his own skin. How can black people tolerate politicians - black OR white - playing them like cards in a hand? Until they stand up and stop it for themselves, no legislation or civil rights initiative or social program in the world will be able to help them any more.
Instead, now we live in a society in which race is a determining factor in who gets admitted to college, or hired for a job. How is that not racist? How is that not judging color of skin rather than content of character? The civil rights movement was surely needed in its day ... but now the cure has become the disease. Politicans seem to have no incentive to push for a new cure, or to encourage healing at all.
Dr. King's legacy has become nothing more than partisan political fodder.
That is profoundly sad.
The civil rights era is over. Let it go.
Exhibit #1:
"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country"
and
"It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans — the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans," the mayor said. "This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans."
-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181851,00.html
_____________________________
OK, for one thing, I cannot tolerate the idea that Pat Robertson (or whoever the evangelist-of-the-moment was who said it) gets lampooned in the "media" for suggesting that God might be punishing Ariel Sharon with a stroke for giving up the West Bank, but Nagin is ignored for making basically the same kind of (ass)ertion. What on earth is he smoking that makes him say some of the stuff he says? Pat Robertson is crazy, but nobody elected him Mayor....
Mister Nagin? Sorry to interrupt, but Marion Barry is on line one....
But I digress. I wanted to spew about race, so on to Exhibit 2:
The House "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about..."It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard." "We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
Sentator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in a speech to the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181836,00.html
_______________________________________________
The civil rights movement in the United States is over. There is absolutely nothing more that can be done for "black" people. "Whites" are, as much as possible, OVER the color-of-skin issue. No more progress can be made until black people stop paying so much attention to their skin color. We can't get any further past it until they stop beating the skin-color drum.
The fact the Nagin and Clinton are still willing to stoop to that level only perpetuates the remaining race problem in our country. Their comments are pure pandering, and do absolutely nothing to move black people - or "white" people, for that matter - forward.
Never mind that their comments - both of them - did nothing to suggest ways to improve problems. Whether it's the ludicrous suggestion that a city - any city - needs to be primarily made up of a particular demographic OR using a plantation as a metaphor for political corruption... That's race-baiting pure and simple. Not to mention the plantation metaphor may very well be the weakest, worst, most obnoxious metaphor ever presented.
Now, for Exhibit 3:
"I have a dream that my four little 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."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
_http://members.aol.com/klove01/marquote.htm_______________________________________________________
Until politicians with no shame stop using race as a means to an end (i.e. an election), Dr. King's dream will never - ever - be realized. I submit that it's impossible to judge a man's character when that man is conscious of nothing but the color of his own skin. How can black people tolerate politicians - black OR white - playing them like cards in a hand? Until they stand up and stop it for themselves, no legislation or civil rights initiative or social program in the world will be able to help them any more.
Instead, now we live in a society in which race is a determining factor in who gets admitted to college, or hired for a job. How is that not racist? How is that not judging color of skin rather than content of character? The civil rights movement was surely needed in its day ... but now the cure has become the disease. Politicans seem to have no incentive to push for a new cure, or to encourage healing at all.
Dr. King's legacy has become nothing more than partisan political fodder.
That is profoundly sad.
The civil rights era is over. Let it go.
posted by Alpineman, RN at 1:39 PM
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