When
did conservatives start falling in love with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? I
used to joke that I was so old that I could teach history from memory, but this
I truly do remember. When Dr. King was alive, he certainly was never recognized
as a courageous hero by the right. Instead, conservatives vilified him
regularly. To mention just a few, they labeled Dr. King a radical, a communist, a
subversive, a criminal, a trouble-maker, etc., etc.
Today
conservative memes are showing up all over the place jumping on the Hero
Bandwagon. Their real purpose, however, is to not to praise King but to
denigrate and label as dangerous radicals President Obama,
AG Holder, the reverends Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, and others. I’m not
nominating any of these men for sainthood (history will judge them as it has
Dr. King); the leadership of the latter two, especially, frequently strikes me as
more self-serving and reactive than productive, but my guess is these converts
wouldn’t like what the “radical” Dr. King would be saying today, were we
blessed to still have him with us.
At
some point, in order to make skeptics listen more closely, conservatives are
going to have to recognize that their track record on civil rights for ALL
groups (minorities, women, gays, etc.) has always been oppositional, and trying
to bring their stale chips and dip to the party 35 years later is less than impressive.
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