Today we celebrate the life and accomplishments of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Let us celebrate his dream that men will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
That struggle against race-based laws and racial discrimination continues-- the struggle against all distinction among human beings on account of race-- and it is a struggle that is essential to our nation's future. Rev. Dr. King said it with astonishing eloquence:
It has been said that the Civil Rights Movement was organized in and derived its strength from Christian churches. Reverend King-- pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, as well as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference-- brought his deep faith in God to his work for civil rights. At the core of the struggle for human rights is the recognition that God created all men equal, and has endowed all men with same unalienable rights. The Christian understanding of man has long been the root of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights Movement.
May God bless Dr. King, and may America make real his dream of a nation without discrimination based on race.
That struggle against race-based laws and racial discrimination continues-- the struggle against all distinction among human beings on account of race-- and it is a struggle that is essential to our nation's future. Rev. Dr. King said it with astonishing eloquence:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four 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.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
It has been said that the Civil Rights Movement was organized in and derived its strength from Christian churches. Reverend King-- pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, as well as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference-- brought his deep faith in God to his work for civil rights. At the core of the struggle for human rights is the recognition that God created all men equal, and has endowed all men with same unalienable rights. The Christian understanding of man has long been the root of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights Movement.
May God bless Dr. King, and may America make real his dream of a nation without discrimination based on race.
Some people still can't get over race, all these yeas later.
ReplyDeletehttp://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/01/19/ap-espn-and-league-itself-dont-lack-diversity-years-coaching-changes
Ever notice that we're colorblind about overwhelmingly black running backs and receivers, but we're color conscious about white coaches and quarterbacks?
An institution can be too white but never too black.
"Jim Caldwell nearly went undefeated as a rookie coach in Indianapolis three years ago and he's one win away from returning to the Super Bowl as an assistant with Baltimore.
Yet Caldwell didn't get one interview for any of the eight coaching vacancies in the NFL this year.
"That's almost impossible for me to comprehend," John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation, told The Associated Press on Friday."
Attention, Fritz Pollard: He went 2-14 during his last season with the Ravens. Then he was fired.
Joey
I rarely watch football but I have noticed that most of the quarterbacks, coaches, and kickers are white, while most everyone else is black.
DeleteThis must be how leftists think that it works: the teams hire the best athletes to play certain positions, beacause--duh!--they really want to win games and eventually, super bowls. The "best athletes" seem to be black in nearly all cases when it comes to certain positions. But other positions are reserved for white men because the management is racist and would rather lose than put a black person in that position.
And we're supposed to believe that this is the legacy of Martin Luther King? Just let it go. Hire the best people and let the chips fall where they may.
I've noticed that the league has brought in a lot more black quarterbacks in recent years. I've also noticed that most of them aren't very good. As the regular season progresses to the playoffs there are fewer black quarterbacks, and as the playoffs progress to the championships and the super bowl, even fewer.
TRISH
As a society, we alternate between color blindness and color consciousness depending on whom it benefits. If it benefits blacks and other minorities to be color blind, that's what we do. If it benefits blacks and other minorities to be color conscious, that's what we do.
DeleteLittle John
Sorry, that should be last season with the Colts.
ReplyDeleteJoey
That's so racist of you, Joey. Coaches should be hired because of skin color, not talent. Isn't that what Martin Luther King taught us?
ReplyDeleteLittle John
I know. I'm sorry. I'll go flog myself now. Teams should hire black guys with 2-14 records so that they can look good while losing badly.
DeleteJoey
The physics and chemistry departments at major universities are filled with Asian students because the racist admissions departments favor people with yellow skin. Obviously.
ReplyDeleteThe Torch
The first 8 comments in this thread do not inspire hope. They sound bitter and divisive.
ReplyDeleteHoo
You know what seems pretty divisive to me? When the rules of the game change from color blind to color conscious and back again, depending on how they benefit blacks and harm whites.
DeleteYou inspire no hope at all, Hoo. I do, however, hope that we can some day get beyond race and just measure people by their merits. I think Martin Luther King would want that too.
Little John
@Hoo:
Delete"They sound bitter and divisive."
So you'll join me in condemning racism, affirmative action, and race-baiting?
Dr. Egnor,
DeleteAm I allowed to hold my own position or is this "you are either with us or against us" thing here? Which once again would be a divisive thing?
Hoo
@Hoo: I've been discriminated against my entire life. I'm sorry if it's made me "bitter." The funny thing is that the people who discriminate against me like to tell me that they're combating discrimination.
DeleteJoey
"Am I allowed to hold my own position or is this "you are either with us or against us" thing here?"
DeleteI get it. So when it comes to discriminating against whites and many, many double standards that benefit minorities, you can't take a clear stand. Asking you to do so would be asking you to adopt a with-us-or-against-us attitude.
Make up your mind. it's not hard.
Joey
Joey,
DeleteDiscrimination per se is not illegal. What is illegal is discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, and the like. If you have experienced that, you have a valid concern.
Hoo
Yeah, well, I have. It's official government policy. It's more than that though, it's also societal double standards.
DeleteJoey
Joey,
DeleteHas your application for work been turned down because you are white? Have you been refused admission to college for the same reason? Could you detail your specific grievances?
Hoo
Affirmative action. The New Haven firefighter case. The New York firefighters. I'm not permitted to criticize the president because he's black. Black sepratism. Hispanic separatism. Asian seperatism.
DeleteAnd yes, as a matter of fact, when I was in the Army, I saw minorities and women promoted despite lackluster performance. That's what happens when one group is given preferential treatment over another.
"Asian Americans in the Harvard Class of 1995 have the highest average SAT scores of the groups within Harvard College, according to the report. The study also shows that Blacks in the Harvard Class of 1994 were admitted to the College at a higher rate than any other minority group.
Harvard's Black students in the class of 1995 have the lowest average SAT scores, and Asian and Native Americans in the class of 1994 were admitted at rates below the overall average, the report says.
Harvard's Asian Americans in the Class of 1995 have average SAT scores of 1450, Blacks averaged scores of 1290, whites scored 1400 and Hispanics averaged 1310, the report states."
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/5/7/report-discloses-sats-admit-rate-pa/
I presume the anonymous comment at 8:40 AM was from Joey.
DeleteJoey, I asked for specific instances of race, color, gender, and similar discrimination against you. You gave none, instead making vague and general statements about our unfair society. I am not surprised. Most, if not all, bitter commenters above have not themselves experienced any such discrimination and are merely reproducing the noises from the conservative echo chamber.
But you have brought up the issue of SAT scores, which is something I know a bit about, so let me comment on that. If college admissions were decided on the basis of SAT scores alone, your argument would have strength. They are not: an SAT score is only one factor. There are many others, including college grades, sports participation, other relevant experiences.
I have served on admission committees, not college-level but higher, graduate school. There is a similar situation with GRE scores, only on an international scale. If you look at scores of students from China and Korea, they tend to be all above 900, whereas the vast majority of US students score below that. If we admitted students on the basis of scores only, pretty much all of the slots would be filled with Chinese and Korean students. That would not be in our interests—not because of racial concerns, mind you,—but because GRE scores are not a good indicator of future success or creativity. High average scores in Asia are a reflection of the education style dominated by cramming and rot memorization. So we look at lots of other factors and admit students from both the US and abroad. The US students tend to be less well academically prepared initially, but they catch up and get ahead as grad school progresses.
So don't tell me about SAT scores. I know a bit about them. SAT scores alone do not impress me.
Hoo
I have too experienced discrimination, in the ranks of the Army. I said so.
DeleteWhy do you suppose the Korean and Chinese students do so much better on the GRE scores?
No, the blacks aren't admitted with lower SAT scores because they do better in other areas. They're admitted at higher rates because the standards are lowered for them. That's discrimination.
I knew you would move the goal posts.
Did you hear Sonia Sotmayor whining that her career has always been overshadowed by the fact tha certain really racist people think that she's been fasttracked as a minority female, when in fact she herself admits that she's been fasttracked as a minority female?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57563539/sotomayor-on-role-affirmative-action-played-in-her-life/
"So don't tell me about SAT scores."
I'll tell you about anything I want, you arrogant self-satisfied know-nothing.
Joey
It's good to know that I'm speaking directly to the member of the apparatus that discriminates against Chinese and Korean students.
DeleteJoey
Joey,
DeleteYou are barking up the wrong tree. This has nothing to do with race and everything with studying practices. I don't care whether a graduate of Tsinghua checks the Asian box or not. His high GRE score reflects his Chinese education. In fact, she might have a high TOEFL score, but it does not necessarily mean that she can speak English well.
It's so funny that you accuse me of being an anti-Asian bigot. I have Asian roots myself.
Hoo
That should say "universities and employers." I left a word out there.
ReplyDeleteLittle John
I used to support AA because it benefited me and I thought my people had suffered enough. I must admit that I didn't really see people as individuals, but rather as members of groups. Some groups, I believed, deserved compensation, even if that meant that other groups had to suffer. Then I married a white man and I saw that it did real harm to people. I had to ask myself if AA wasn't the same thing in reverse. If the people who discriminated against me because of my skin color were racist, doesn't that make me racist to return the favor?
ReplyDelete1 Peter 3:9: Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult; but, on the contrary, a blessing, because to this you are called, that you might inherit a blessing."
--Francisca S.
When you say "your people", what people is that?
DeleteTRISH
My father is Haitian. My mother is Lithuanian and Puerto Rican. I have always considered myself a person of color, and for years, a natural liberal Democrat. Over time my eyes opened and I became a right-leaning independent. Marrying my husband, a a white guy, was one of those things.
Delete--Francisca S.
It’s sad to see so much denial about the right’s racism problem, but of course it’s nothing new, white racist have been oblivious to the systemic and institutionalized injustices that advantage them for centuries.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago Americans where asked if racial discrimination was a significant national problem. Large percentages of the lack and brown people responded that it was a problem; while only 6% of whites thought it was a significant problem (about half the number that thinks Elvis may still be alive).
In 1963, Americans where asked if people of color had equal opportunity and where treated equally, 80% of white people said yes. In 1962 Americans where asked if black children where treated equally in schools and had equal educational opportunities and 90% of white people said yes. Of course this is absurd. We all know that the apartheid system in America was in full swing before the civil rights act, the voting rights act and the fair housing act, but our grandparents where blind to the injustice.
But why stop there. In the 1890’s white newspaper editors in the south where opining that we get along fine with our Negros, if only you Yankees would leave us alone, or in 1850 when Dr. Samuel Cartwright argued that slavery wasn’t a problem, so much so that he described a new mental illness to explain a slave’s desire to flee bondage. You must be crazy to want to run away from your loving master.
Denial by whites in every generation, still so profound that today, on MLK day, the denialists like Egnor claim “the struggle” as their own, because it is really the white man that is being discriminated against. Disgusting.
-KW
Racism is still very much a problem, and blacks suffer much discrimination. It is not as overt as it was before the civil rights movement, but it is real. It is easy for a white person not to see, because we are not on the recieving end of it. I have black friends who point it out to me, and I have seen it in subtle but quite real ways against black colleagues.
DeleteOf course, racism is not limited to whites abusing blacks. It cuts all ways, in different situations. There are neighborhoods where I as a white man would be very foolish to walk at night. And of course there is affirmative action, which is the most explicit form of legal racism today in our country.
All of this makes Dr. King's dream of a colorblind society even more important. We need to eliminate race as a thing that divides us.
That means eschewing racism, personal and legal, and eschewing race-baiting. The race-hucksters on all sides (the David Dukes and the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons) need to be repudiated.
In my view, Dr. King's Christian message-- we are all God's children, equal in His eyes-- is the best way out of our racist mess.
"Denial by whites in every generation, still so profound that today, on MLK day, the denialists like Egnor claim 'the struggle' as their own, because it is really the white man that is being discriminated against. Disgusting."
DeleteIt's not about whose struggle it is, KW. It's about doing the right thing and treating people by the content of their character. It's about seeing each other as human beings. Martin Luther King delivered his speech in 1983, and no one here doubts that blacks were getting the short end of the stick then. But it's not 1963 anymore. Society has changed; in some good ways and some bad. The principles, however, remain the same.
The answer to white-on-black racism is not black-on-white racism.
TRISH
1963. Sorry.
DeleteJust a few comments about some of the canards that are being bandied about...
ReplyDelete1. (hoo) "...GRE scores are not a good indicator of future success or creativity."
Well, hoo's obviously talking about a regression model, and he's right about the predictive power of GRE scores. The GRE scores of graduates do not predict success. Nor could they, with the obvious restriction of range.
2. (hoo) "Creativity" is such a slippery term that it almost defies rational discussion. I challenge anyone here to operationally define creativity, or to find a measure of any kind that will predict it. But it's always a "feel-good" thing to toss into the word salad.
3. (hoo) "Specific instances..."
This problem was addressed by Bastiat in 1850. Nothing has changed since then.
4. (hoo) "I have served on admission committees, not college-level but higher, graduate school."
Well, so have I. But I was curious enough to find out something hoo apparently hasn't bothered to investigate (or reveal): i.e., that simple linear models are better than graduate admissions committees at predicting grad school performance. (The Robust Beauty of Improper Linear Models in Decision Making, Dawes, '74)
5. (love god, KW) "[W]hite racist have been oblivious to the systemic and institutionalized injustices that advantage them for centuries...] Actually, in the historical sense, most world racism can be attributed to non-Caucasian people, simply because racism is endemic in the world, always has been, and, globally, about 70% of the world population is non-Caucasian. KW is obviously one of those New School graduates whose self-esteem exceeds his command of the facts.
Other than that, speaking as a person of pallor, I don't really care one way or the other about AA. As long as there are more applicants than slots, it's a zero-sum game; some people get helped and some people get hurt. The bitching is a constant. There's a conservation law in there somewhere. :-)
But it will be interesting to see how SCOTUS rules on Fisher v UT-Austin with Kagan recused.
Happy MLK day, USA!
ReplyDeleteRemember the dream :)
The real reason the Left should fear MLK is because he cited scripture in his fight against Jim Crow. He said that there are two kinds of laws--laws that comport with God's law, and laws that don't. There is a duty to obey the former but not the latter.
ReplyDeleteJQ
Yes, that would scare the bejesus out of them. They don't like hearing about God's law because they hate Him.
Delete--Francisca S.
Why should MLK be feared because he cited scripture?
DeleteFor all the good that MLK has done, he wiped his ass with "God's law". As is customary among people fond of quoting scripture in public, he was a hypocrite - a serial adulterer and a plagiarizer.
Dr. King was a human being. We are all sinners, and we all fall short of What God wants of us.
DeleteHis genius and humanity-- and simple physical courage-- astonish me. He changed our nation much for the better, and in my view his accomplishments were on a par with those of Lincoln.
He unraveled a tapestry of hate that had been in place inour nation for centuries, and he did it with non-violence and mutual respect and self-evident decency. Think about-- within a few years of his work, no one in America could spew racial hatred in public and be accepted. He changed our culture radically, and radically for the better, in just a few years.
He always left the door open for reconciliation-- he even offered the racists a hand of friendship, if they would mend their ways.
He had human foibles, but few men accomplish as much good as he did in his tragically short life. As a white person I thank him especially, because he helped show us a way out of racial animosity. Racism degrades both the perpetrator and the victim.
God bless Dr. King.
Francisca,
DeleteHow can an atheist hate someone who doesn't exist? Admittedly, I did hate Severus Snape, but that was only a transient thing.
“within a few years of his work, no one in America could spew racial hatred in public and be accepted.”
DeleteYou apparently don’t read the comments section of some of the more popular conservative websites, like The Blaze, and Breitbart.com.
-KW
Pretty funny, KW. I love being warned about anonymous commentors by an anonymous commentor.
DeleteOvert traceable racist expression today is not tolerated. To do so, people have to either say it anonymously or privately.
Dr. King changed our discourse, in much the way that William Wilberforce changed discourse about the slave trade.
Does racism exist today? Of course it does, on all sides. But explicit racism is not a part of our public dialogue, and much of that is because of Dr. King's work.
You should honor his life by working for a color-blind society.