Posted on 01/31/2006 4:05:36 AM PST by Maria S
I just heard on the news that Mrs. Coretta King has died. Just my personal opinion, but she was a dignified, classy woman who served her country and her late husband's memory quite well.
I should have known you would never stand down!
I suppose if God doesn't suffer fools gladly, why should we?
On the other hand, sometimes I just can't take it and need to stay away from the threads that get my blood boiling.
You stay sweet!
And I'll stay copperhead as always
Ari
free dixie HUGS,sw
Except for Helms and Sirhan, these people are no longer with us. The civil rights era is becoming ever more distant history. Whatever was accomplished in that time, for good or ill, is the legacy of all Americans. It may be that there will always be tension between blacks and whites due to the effects of slavery and segregation on blacks and the reaction of whites to Federally mandated remedies such as school busing and affirmative action. Blacks are familiar with the stories of lynchings and routine humiliation in the years before the civil rights movement. Whites are fearful of black criminals and resent government favoritism shown to African-Americans. Even with the larger numbers of Asians and Latin Americans in our midst, the tension between the white and black races is the oldest and most profound conflict within our nation.
I do not know if this division will ever disappear from our country. However, limiting government involvement in these matters, with neither Jim Crow nor affirmative action, would help end a centuries old cycle of government siding with one race vs. another.
G.W. was bashed big time by blacks at the euology. What an idiot for showing up there. As usual G.W. continues to be the punching bag for the left and does nothing about it.
Listen to Michael Savage discuss the Bush bashing.
http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/
"What an idiot for showing up there. As usual G.W. continues to be the punching bag for the left and does nothing about it."
Call the president an idiot if you want; I think he was showing his usual class. And if he HADN'T shown up? What do you think blacks would have said THEN?
The "idiots" were the reverend and jimmy carter. They wouldn't understand class if it hit them between the eyes.
KING FUNERAL TURNS POLITICAL: BUSH BASHED BY FORMER PRESIDENT, REVEREND
Tue Feb 07 2006 15:49:48 ET
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
Buffalo News
Commercialism mars King legacy
2/4/2006
By LEONARD PITTS
I interviewed Coretta Scott King once. It cost $5,000.
In 1985, I approached the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta seeking that interview and permission to use old audio of Coretta's husband for a radio documentary. I was told it would cost five grand for the audio rights, and it was made clear that unless that money was paid, there would be no interview.
The ethical constraints of a radio production house are different from those of a news organization; we made the deal. I didn't like it, but I rationalized it by telling myself it was an honor to contribute to the upkeep of a legendary legacy.
Amazing what you can make yourself believe.
Coretta Scott King died this week, five months after suffering a heart attack and stroke. She is being widely and lavishly eulogized. "A remarkable and courageous woman," said the president. "A staunch freedom fighter," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The praise is deserved. There was majesty and grace in Coretta Scott King, a strength of heart that was displayed nowhere more clearly than at her husband's death. Like Jacqueline Kennedy before her, she mourned inconceivable loss with awesome dignity. Since then, she has been a tireless defender of the dream her husband articulated in August of 1963.
She shielded it against racism, pessimism and defeatism. She was less successful against commercialism.
And I don't mean the piddling $5,000. That's a small symptom of the larger malady. I refer you to the King family's 1993 lawsuit against USA Today for reprinting the "I Have A Dream" speech and their subsequent licensing of King's image and voice for use in television commercials, one of which placed him between Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog. Then there's the attempt to sell his personal papers for $20 million. Perhaps most galling was the family's demand to be paid to allow construction of a King monument on the Washington Mall.
Yes, it's all legal. But if Dr. King's life taught us nothing else, it taught us that legality and morality are not necessarily the same.
I don't mind the King family making money. But not at the cost of Martin Luther King's dignity. Granted, dignity is subjective, and you might draw the line in a different place than I. But I suspect most of us would agree that when a martyr, minister and American hero becomes a TV character hawking cell phones with Homer Simpson, that line has been well and truly crossed.
Coretta Scott King founded the King Center, and it has always been controlled by the family. So it seems plain that she approved this money-grubbing or at least tolerated it. And as a result, her kids have lost their minds.
Particularly the sons, Martin III and Dexter, recently seen publicly feuding over which one will have the six-figure job of running the King Center. Meantime, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us the facility is in need of $11 million in repairs and that $4.2 million of center money has been paid since 2000 to a company Dexter owns. This would be the same Dexter who, in 1995, visited Graceland for tips on how to exploit his father's image as Lisa Marie Presley has exploited her father's.
Martin Luther King, it seems necessary to say, was not Elvis Presley. He was a man who stood for something and died for something. That something was not profit. That something belonged to all of us. One wonders if the loss of their mother will shock his children into understanding this.
I'd like to think so. But had you visited the King Center Web site three days after Coretta died looking for a tribute, here's what you'd have found: a press release, a quote from Dr. King, and a request for money. "Make an online donation in loving memory," it said.
You can do it if you want. Me, I gave at the office.
She is a black Hillary. She knew she had a gravy train and stayed on it.
Contact Jimmy Carter, a small man with a small mind.
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