By Steve Rhodes
Just like they do with John Lennon, a lot of folks today who despised him in his time – or would have – will speak glowingly of Dr. Martin Luther King today. I have no patience for such posers.
If King were with us today, for example, have no doubt that he’d be with Cornel West, not Barack Obama; the difference being that, unlike West, King would not have been fooled in the first place.
When a young Barack Obama said “That’s my story” after reading Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters, well, I don’t know which version of the book he read but I don’t see any parallels between King’s deep-seated, religiously anchored struggle for moral justice and a smart but somewhat wayward youth whose accommodationist ways were already evident in a struggle not with the world but with himself over his own identity. How dare he.
And I’m sure Rahm Emanuel will have some kind words to say about Dr. King today – even as he schemes to discourage and punish protesters whom King would have stood with.
Pat Quinn will join Rahm at a prayer’s breakfast this morning, but do you really think King would be pleased with the governor awarding tax breaks to crybaby corporation who asks while social service vendors go begging for money already owed them?
King didn’t preach candy-cotton and unicorns. He aggressively took a side. He unequivocally stood for a set of principles which will maddeningly be glossed over today.
“When the Civil Rights movement was building, Dr. King was reviled as an outside agitator and slandered as a communist,” Jesse Jackson said in a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “Dr King challenged legal segregation in America and the institutional structures resulting in racial inequality and poverty. Entrenched privilege does not surrender its privilege easily. The Occupy Movement is a spirit and in many ways is addressing the same ills Dr. King sought to combat. Occupy is taking on the most powerful interests. But nothing, as Victor Hugo wrote, is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. As Dr. King urged, ‘Don’t sleep through the revolution.’ It is time to take a stand.”
King in Chicago
Part 1: Daley mobilizes black machine politicians to undermine King.
Part 2: Daley denies there are slums in Chicago – then pledges to eliminate them within a year.
Part 3: Daley’s private feelings about King are revealed.
Conclusion: A battle between two very different visions of Chicago.
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“Many ministers who were with us had to back off because they didn’t want their buildings to be condemned or given citations for electrical work, faulty plumbing, or fire code violations.”
– Rev. Clay Evans, via History Discarded, History Preserved – The Different Fate Of Two Chicago Churches Associated With Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Occupy The Dream
“Religious and civil rights leaders joined forces Sunday with the Occupy Chicago movement, urging those fighting for economic and political equality to remember the passion and purpose with which the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. helped change the country,” the Tribune reports.
The Rooftop Pastor
“The church sits in the middle of the territory of four different street gangs, and Brooks’s congregation of about 2,500 people includes dozens of former gang members,” the Chicago News Cooperative reports. “‘I’ve always wanted to minister to the people Jesus would, the outcasts, the rejects, the dispossessed,’ he said. ‘Everybody is welcome. Everybody has a soul.'”
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Today In White Guilt
Is it possible that some white people hate black people more than they like a three-day weekend?
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Mental Ward Room
NBC Ward Room correspondent Ted McClelland started with a Facebook post about Green Bay’s playoff loss yesterday with a status update that said “So long, Fudge Packers. The stereo in the bar is playing ‘New York, New York.'”
Yikes.
But this really took it over the top:
I’m not sure any of the pols McClelland covers would survive that.
Packers Still (Way) Better Than Bears
And the Cardinals are still (way) better than the Cubs. And the Red Wings . . . in SportsMonday.
Tribute To The Fish Of Lake Michigan
As found at the Pratt underpass.
Naty’s Barber & Beauty Shop
Local commercial goodness.
The Weekend in Chicago Rock
The sights, the sounds.
Frontline Books vs. U of C
An update.
King Day Celebration
The DuSable Museum lineup.
Programming Note
I’m back behind the bar tonight at the venerable Beachwood Inn. Drinks will be extra civil rightsy and maybe I’ll be moved to give my own (very brief) dream speech, which some of you have heard. 5p – 2a.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Dare to dream.
Posted on January 16, 2012