Posted on 09/03/2009 3:55:13 PM PDT by J.J Speelman
A Proper Juxtaposition Share on Other Sites J.J Speelman National Politics, Opinion
It was a sunny day in Charlotte, NC. President Obama was just sworn in as the nation’s 44th president and there was a sort of happy energy flowing around the streets of an economically challenged area of the city. As I was driving down the long stretch of Beaties Ford Road, I noticed to my left, a shirt vendor selling Barrack Obama tees and hats. A few parking lots up the road, I saw another vendor selling the same products, along with a few that had Obama’s face next to Dr. Martin Luther King’s.
Quite nettled by the sightings, I was thinking about what a dramatic turn the country had just made, when I received a phone call from a conservative buddy of mine. Apparently, he couldn’t wait to hear my reaction to the country’s decision to gravitate. “So what are you thinking?” he asked.
“I am thinking that I just saw shirts comparing this far left liberal we just swore in to Martin Luther King.” I simply cannot justify a comparison between the two men.
Later that day, I was in a barber shop where I noticed a picture of King and Obama side by side. Above King it read, “I have a dream,” and above Obama it read, “I am the dream.” And I was having a nightmare.
What dreams are we talking about here? Do people really believe that Obama is anything like King? As hard as I try, I cannot find any common ground among the two men minus their skin color. So let’s juxtapose:
Dr. King spoke in a time when blacks couldn’t share a water fountain with whites; had to stand on the back of a bus and/or surrender their seats to whites; were abused and sometimes killed for entering the “white” side of town, among other atrocities. Obama exploited race for money and power.
Dr. King gave the spellbinding, “I have a dream speech,” where he dreamed his “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.” Obama wants an “empathetic judge” who rules by her own personal biases rather than interpret the laws of our constitution. His nomination of Sonia Sotomoyor to the Supreme Court makes it very clear that he has no intention of making America a color blind nation.
Dr. King’s ideology was rooted in civil rights activism at a time when such action was needed. In 1957, King and Robert Abernathy founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This group was founded in order to channel the moral authority of many black churches to conduct non-violent protests for civil rights reform. Obama sat in the racist congregation of Jeremiah Wright for twenty years and listened to his tirades against white America. Obama was active with the Association Of Community Organizers For Reform Now (ACORN), an arguably racist group that is currently under investigation for voter fraud.
I believe the comparison of Obama to King is unfair. King was a revolutionary. Obama is a dissenter of King’s dream. King’s whole life justified the cause in which he’d stood up and died for. Obama is making money. I’ve listened to King’s speech time and again. I have felt inspired. His speech has meaning and substance. I listen to Obama speak and I hear promises inconsistent with his past, having no bearing on reality, and without substance. I hear the conviction of a TELEPROMPTER with the cheers of duped people blindly following hot air.
Promulgating a comparison of Obama to King is careless. It takes the great work of a revolutionary figure and dilutes it into just another unwarranted protest of bigotry that would come out of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network or Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition. The comparison is unjust. Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama would not have stood up in King’s era. Instead, all three ride on the accomplishments of King and, in part, created a “race card” era of politics and public policy which has weakened our nation via race relations and overall work ethic. This is not what King spoke about. Instead, he spoke of equal rights and fairness. Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama are crying racism at a time when blacks and other minorities have a larger window of free speech along with programs and policies that help minorities while discriminating against the majority. In short, these men have all undermined the work of King, yet have been compared to him by their followers. The era of King demanded his great courage which was supported by his conviction.
Dr. King must remain celebrated in our nation’s history. We should exercise the values of equal rights and revere those who stand up in times when those rights are threatened. Fortunately, such times are rare. However, juxtapositions are taking away from a legacy that was the antithesis of the movement that Obama supports. So why the comparisons? Whatever the case, America must open its eyes to truth. Let the facts speak for themselves. And one of the facts is this: Barrack Hussein Obama is no Martin Luther King.
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It was a sunny day in Charlotte, NC. President Obama was just sworn in as the nation’s 44th president and there was a sort of happy energy flowing around the streets of an economically challenged area of the city. As I was driving down the long stretch of Beaties Ford Road, I noticed to my left, a shirt vendor selling Barrack Obama tees and hats. A few parking lots up the road, I saw another vendor selling the same products, along with a few that had Obama’s face next to Dr. Martin Luther King’s.
Quite nettled by the sightings, I was thinking about what a dramatic turn the country had just made, when I received a phone call from a conservative buddy of mine. Apparently, he couldn’t wait to hear my reaction to the country’s decision to gravitate. “So what are you thinking?” he asked.
“I am thinking that I just saw shirts comparing this far left liberal we just swore in to Martin Luther King.” I simply cannot justify a comparison between the two men.
Later that day, I was in a barber shop where I noticed a picture of King and Obama side by side. Above King it read, “I have a dream,” and above Obama it read, “I am the dream.” And I was having a nightmare.
What dreams are we talking about here? Do people really believe that Obama is anything like King? As hard as I try, I cannot find any common ground among the two men minus their skin color. So let’s juxtapose:
Dr. King spoke in a time when blacks couldn’t share a water fountain with whites; had to stand on the back of a bus and/or surrender their seats to whites; were abused and sometimes killed for entering the “white” side of town, among other atrocities. Obama exploited race for money and power.
Dr. King gave the spellbinding, “I have a dream speech,” where he dreamed his “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.” Obama wants an “empathetic judge” who rules by her own personal biases rather than interpret the laws of our constitution. His nomination of Sonia Sotomoyor to the Supreme Court makes it very clear that he has no intention of making America a color blind nation.
Dr. King’s ideology was rooted in civil rights activism at a time when such action was needed. In 1957, King and Robert Abernathy founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). This group was founded in order to channel the moral authority of many black churches to conduct non-violent protests for civil rights reform. Obama sat in the racist congregation of Jeremiah Wright for twenty years and listened to his tirades against white America. Obama was active with the Association Of Community Organizers For Reform Now (ACORN), an arguably racist group that is currently under investigation for voter fraud.
I believe the comparison of Obama to King is unfair. King was a revolutionary. Obama is a dissenter of King’s dream. King’s whole life justified the cause in which he’d stood up and died for. Obama is making money. I’ve listened to King’s speech time and again. I have felt inspired. His speech has meaning and substance. I listen to Obama speak and I hear promises inconsistent with his past, having no bearing on reality, and without substance. I hear the conviction of a TELEPROMPTER with the cheers of duped people blindly following hot air.
Promulgating a comparison of Obama to King is careless. It takes the great work of a revolutionary figure and dilutes it into just another unwarranted protest of bigotry that would come out of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network or Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition. The comparison is unjust. Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama would not have stood up in King’s era. Instead, all three ride on the accomplishments of King and, in part, created a “race card” era of politics and public policy which has weakened our nation via race relations and overall work ethic. This is not what King spoke about. Instead, he spoke of equal rights and fairness. Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama are crying racism at a time when blacks and other minorities have a larger window of free speech along with programs and policies that help minorities while discriminating against the majority. In short, these men have all undermined the work of King, yet have been compared to him by their followers. The era of King demanded his great courage which was supported by his conviction.
Dr. King must remain celebrated in our nation’s history. We should exercise the values of equal rights and revere those who stand up in times when those rights are threatened. Fortunately, such times are rare. However, juxtapositions are taking away from a legacy that was the antithesis of the movement that Obama supports. So why the comparisons? Whatever the case, America must open its eyes to truth. Let the facts speak for themselves. And one of the facts is this: Barrack Hussein Obama is no Martin Luther King.
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No Related Post
There’s another difference between King and Obama. I wish King was still alive.
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