Posted on 10/30/2021 3:22:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
I revered Dr. King. Still do. Fusing Christian thought with Gandhi’s tactic of “satyagraha,” King immortalized the idea that regular people could peacefully lock arms in civil disobedience to abolish bad laws. Jim Crow laws, in his case.
In a 1957 speech, King quoted Faust author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the tragedy of the human condition: “There’s enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue,” he said, paraphrasing Goethe’s “Two souls live in me, alas, irreconcilable with one another.”
King quoted Plato’s comparison of man’s “struggle within” to a charioteer with “two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions.”
On race, America is schizophrenic in that way – one nation galloping full speed inside the chaos between two headstrong horses. Both sides are deeply divided. Both hold firm to King’s legacy to justify irreconcilable visions. And both can’t be right. There’s enough stuff in King’s legacy for “gentlemen and rogues” to pluck out ideas to anchor conflicting interpretations of life in America after slavery, Jim Crow and Barack Obama.
Antiracists, for instance, see “colorblindness” as a distortion of King’s Dream speech.
For them, “content of character over skin color” is a racist idea because it asks blacks to ignore the peculiar history attached indelibly to their skin color. “Not seeing color,” they say, is a Trojan horse for racist ideas and policies that perpetuate systemic racism.
That’s why blurting out “colorblindness” gets you the same vitriol as “All Lives Matter.” Say “All Lives Matter,” and they hear “Blacks Lives Don’t Matter.” Racial overseers also whip you for saying, “melting pot” and “assimilation.” It’s like cussing in church.
“So in reality, the ‘colorblind’ and ‘melting pot’ ideologies that many believe to be consistent with Dr. King’s dream are actually distortions and misappropriations of Dr. King’s true dream,” wrote E. J. R. David, Ph.D., associate professor, University of Alaska Anchorage in Psychology Today. “Both concepts are illusions that have done nothing but to preserve oppressive systems and hide prejudiced attitudes, essentially operating as barriers to truly achieving MLK’s dream.”
And what’s the proof that “oppressive systems” are being preserved? Disparities in black wealth, education, housing, prison population, maltreatment by cops, etc., they say. Disparities, for them, are the strange fruit grown from policies fertilized by “racist ideas” that keeps the oppressive system flourishing.
King said that six decades ago.
That was the point of Ibram X. Kendi’s recent column, The Second Assassination Of Martin Luther Jr., The Atlantic. He wrote that focusing on King’s “colorblindness” distorts his larger message years after his “Dream” speech. “These self-professed admirers of King are digging a new grave and burying King’s body of work within it.”
Eleven years after the Montgomery Boycott, four years after the “Dream” speech, and three years after President Johnson introduced his poverty programs and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, King was roused from his dream.
In a 1967 interview with NBC’s Sander Vanocur, King said that after a lot of “soul-searching” and “agonizing moments,” some of his old optimism was superficial and needed to be tempered with reality.
“I must confess,” King said, “that that dream that I had that day has, in many points, turned into a nightmare. … I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long, long way to go.” Realistic, for King, because government money he wanted for blacks was being lavished on war in Vietnam.
Killing Jim Crow was solely about dignity, King told an audience at Stanford University in 1967. “Massive action” was needed to achieve equality. How? Mostly big government programs and spending.
In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here, King urged “special treatment” for blacks. “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years,” he wrote, “must now do something special for him, ...”
King, in his time, was right about the stench of oppression that lingered after Jim Crow died. But as excruciatingly difficult as it was, he was wrong to look to government programs as the solution to black progress.
This is not small government dogma. This is the cold, hard, reality that’s been ignored for decades. And the proof is in the pudding. Government has spent trillions on thousands of programs over five decades, and it has institutionalized mountains of rules, regulations and policies designed to choke off racism wherever it struggled to breathe. It didn’t work. Disparities linger.
Looking to government is like dumping water out of a sinking boat and ignoring the hole that’s causing the water to gush through. It helps, but it doesn’t get the job done.
Believing that government can never do for blacks what blacks can only do for themselves was never about racism. The government clumsily did its job when it replaced bad laws with good ones. That brought equality. To build “equity,” individuals must invest sweat equity into improving their economic performance to compete in business and wealth-creation. There’s no other way to close disparities.
Yet activists still use disparities as evidence of racism. And because they’ve decided for all of us that government is the only solution for black progress, anyone who disagrees is accused of perpetuating racism. Strangely, even blacks.
Skin color is used, not to solve problems, but as a weapon in dirty politics. It’s tearing the country apart. And they don’t care.
This is where “government-solution” black activists have transcended skin color to become very human. They’re enriching themselves on the backs of discouraged blacks in troubled communities. The communities become unlivable, but they become richer. They’ve reconciled with their rogue.
From Goethe to Marlow, authors have created their own versions of Johann Georg Faust, the depressed scholar approached by Mephistopheles, Lucifer’s agent, to exchange his soul for worldly pleasures.
Author Willard Farnham said Mephistopheles never really appeared to corrupt men, but to collect the souls of men who already were. “He appears because he senses … that Faustus is already corrupt,” wrote Farnham, “that indeed he is already ‘in danger to be damned.’”
We sense that, too.
Dr. King was made of different stuff than the “saviors” we see today. Relying on a fix-all government was understandable given the times in which he lived. We can’t know for sure, but being the gentlemen he was, I believe that if King had seen the debilitating results of government largesse, he would’ve changed course.
He might’ve said to the very capable headstrong horse, “Quickly now! Adjust your course to the reality. The cavalry isn’t coming.”
Great post. The Rev was fallible like every man. The left cannot continue with someone who believes all men are created equal. Science confirms what we call race identity is a tiny fragment of our genetic makeup. We are one race, uniq6created to be so. Throw in the hochs genes and we are nothing like a banana or an ape. Continuing the eugenecists “scientific”tbeories is completely fairy tale nonsense.
One Race, many cultures, many breeds, but only One Human Race.
BTTT
LBJ’s “Great Society”, was, in actuality, the restoration of the the antebellum society…the new Democrat Plantation.
It destroyed the Black Nuclear Family, made the women dependent upon their men for fertilization and the government for sustenance.
It preached a mantra of oppression, victimhood and helpless entitlement.
Today’s Blacks are by and large slaves on the Democrat Plantation while they can’t even see the chains, binding them.
“The left cannot continue with someone who believes all men are created equal.”
I always thought the FF wrote that in the context of class or caste. They had left England where when a person is born (created) he is destined to be royalty or not. In America there is no royal bloodline, therefore “equal”.
Most people believe it means that everyone truly is equal with everyone else in every way which, of course, makes no sense at all. (Maybe it does mean that, but it’s not how I interpreted it.)
Our Country/Constitution was designed with intention of people growing up learning, knowing it, understanding it and holding people in authority accountable to it. That takes people of morals, integrity and understanding life is not just about yourself or your family - all of which have been trained out of a large portion of people in this country. In it’s place people have been trained to worry and focus on themself first and their comforts and desires and NOT speaking up or act to defend our Constitution, but hope some one else will.
Truth is truth even if no one believes it, or stands for it.
Thankfully God is not swayed from His wonderful plan of redemption. Sad so many choose to not take part or only superficially take part. It’s amazing the transformation of persons willing to cast aside their human mental or physical limitations and dive into trusting God the Father, Jesus & Holy Spirit to show them who He created them to be :) !
“These self-professed admirers of King are digging a new grave and burying King’s body of work within it.”
Just as one cannot dig their way out of a hole, one cannot dig any grave that is deep or large enough to contain the Word of God. In-as-much as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rightly appealed to the Bible in his works, those aspects of his works are eternal and invicible.
Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
“They had left England where when a person is born (created) he is destined to be royalty or not. In America there is no royal bloodline, therefore “equal”.”
I had read that idea many months ago. The writer made a good argument for it, and it made sense.
One of my earliest lessons to my kids was “Life isn’t fair”.
Sadly it came back to bite me. We have helped our kids out through various hardships from time to time. They have never asked for help - we just offer it and they gladly accept it. Some more than others.
Well - until we tried to recently help one out.
“Well - it’s not like it is going to solve the problem!”
“No - but at least it will get you headed in the right direction.”
“I need to do this on my own!!”
“Everybody needs a little help once in awhile. We have helped your siblings out here and there - now it is your turn. It probably would be good for us to try to keep things equal and fair too between you - so let us help.”
“Fair!? You know life isn’t fair!”
“Well, um, yeah - but that’s not to say we can’t try to do our part to make it a bit more fair.”
(She finally did relent and accepted half of what we offered her to help her out of a jam.)
great post.
LBJ should be in the top 5 worst Presidents.
Possibly the worst.
Wow! That’s a good kid you raised — “a good head on her shoulders”, as the saying goes.
Acts 17
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead
I wish she had a good head on her shoulders. She’s in a jam because she is in love with a lousy boy friend! She has a big heart. Bigger than her brain. We pray she will come to her senses. (And yes - she is all and all a good kid.) But stubborn too!
“she is in love with a lousy boy friend!”
I hope it’s not a pattern. It can ruin a person’s entire life.
Post 7: “fair”
Ezekiel 18:25-32 (NKJ)
25“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? 26When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. 27Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed, and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive. 28Because he considers and turns away from all the transgressions which he committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 29Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?
30“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord God. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. 31Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? 32For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”
Sunday services.
People choose to be with folks they want to be with.
Free choice brings freedom. And peace.
If I don’t want to live with, go to school with, or work with (you pick the entitled group) I can choose that.
Forcing people that hate each other together is not a good idea.
National Divorce is the answer.
No Civil War - civil separation.
Choose Freedom. Choose Peace.
I was acquainted with Will Alexander, the writer of this piece, when he was a docent at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. But he resigned in protest after the library’s leftist Nixon-hating director Timothy Naftali tried to orient the library’s displays so as to trash President Nixon and minimize his positive accomplishments.
I’m too much of a literalist and a binary thinker. I got fairly into this article before I realized they weren’t talking about Martin Luther King Jr’s father.
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