Something I became immediately aware of was, all the celebration of MLKDay (except the singing) was delivered with a voice of defiance, anger or victory.
Young people had hard faces matching hard words.
I have no problem with people articulating history and the words of historical people ... but the time for MLK was over 40 years ago and to deliver his words in an angry or defiant way is to indicate no changes have been made in American white society or the changes are not accepted and the fight continues.
Either way, I was offended that I felt attacked just because I was white.
If I'm a racist, racists made me to be.
I noticed the anger as well. What amazes me are not the minorities relishing in the vitriol. It’s the young whites and white women supporting the nonsense that I can’t figure out. I’m not saying the whited need to be racist, but they seem to be unable to see the racism inherent in the democratic platform of set asides, affirmative action, and “not another old white male” rhetoric that goes completely unchallenged.
I heard most of the speech on the radio.
My main take was a bit different. If you set aside the climate change, and the gay references, it was a “good” speech in that it hit all of the important themes—unity, history, respect for the troops, etc. But, if you knew anything about Obama, it was a supremely cynical speech, because he didn’t mean a word of the higher, inspiring themes. It was manipulative, and brought forth just for the occasion.