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| 5/29 |
| 2006/2/7-9 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:41758 Activity:nil |
2/7 http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060207/cm_usatoday/corettascottkingbushforeverlinkedbysymbolism Bush and King linked forever. Forget Katrina, Bush DOES care about the blacks. \_ You're either being incomprehensibly sarcastic or amazingly tonedeaf \_ c'mon, op is just trolling, that's all there is to it. anyway, the column title is "Coretta Scott King, Bush forever linked by symbolism", and he writes, "And while others might not want to give the president credit for this gesture, I will, because I believe there are times when the symbolism of a person's actions ought to be taken seriously." His previous column was http://tinyurl.com/8jzsz which was kind of stupid. \_ Is it so fucking hard to link back to the original USAToday article instead of pretending that it actually comes from Yahoo News? \_ He probably just read it on yahoo, but I would suggest that it should be common courtesy to mention which site the tinyurl link points to. |
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| news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060207/cm_usatoday/corettascottkingbushforeverlinkedbysymbolism USA TODAY Opinion Coretta Scott King, Bush forever linked by symbolism By DeWayne Wickham Tue Feb 7, 7:12 AM ET There are times when symbolism ought to count for something. President Bush and his wife will lead a delegation of politicians and diplomats to Georgia for the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the widow of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The service will be held in a suburban Atlanta megachurch three days after King's body lay in state in the rotunda of Georgia's capitol. King was the first woman and the first black to receive this honor, which was offered to her family by Republican Gov. If you think that's not worth noting, consider this: It was in Georgia's capitol, then in Milledgeville, 146 years ago that Thomas RR Cobb made his famous appeal for the state to secede from the Union, just days after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. this union was formed by white men, and the protection and happiness of their race," he proclaimed on Nov. Instead, he ordered a phalanx of state troopers to stand outside the building as King's funeral procession made its way through Atlanta. On Saturday, an honor guard of state troopers carried Coretta Scott King's casket into Georgia's capitol. Last Tuesday, during his State of the Union address, which was given on the day she died, the president spoke warmly of the woman many call the first lady of civil rights. Our nation "lost a beloved, graceful, courageous woman who called America to its founding ideals and carried on a noble dream," he said. "Tonight, we are comforted by the hope of a glad reunion with the husband who was taken so long ago." Bush's symbolic act comes at a time when many in this nation are grieving the loss of a woman who was herself a leading activist in the struggle for racial equality and human rights. And while others might not want to give the president credit for this gesture, I will, because I believe there are times when the symbolism of a person's actions ought to be taken seriously. King was a strong supporter of "compensatory or preferential treatment" for blacks who have been disadvantaged by the combined effects of nearly 250 years of slavery and the Jim Crow century that followed. Shortly after Bush announced his opposition to the Michigan affirmative action program, Mrs King said she was filing a legal brief in support of the school's admission policy. Opponents of Pickering's nomination accused him of taking positions that threatened black voting rights. Although Mrs King said nothing publicly about the symbolism of Bush's action, it's worth recalling that in 1965, she joined her husband and many others in the historic Selma-to-Montgomery March for black voting rights. Last year, in one of her final public appearances, she returned to Selma to mark the march's 40th anniversary. "The freedom we won here in Selma and on the road to Montgomery was purchased with the precious blood of many," she said that day. The symbolism of Bush's presence at King's funeral should not be dismissed - or forgotten. But neither should those who truly cherish Coretta Scott King forget the other things the president has done that will forever link him to the King family. |
| tinyurl.com/8jzsz -> www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/wickham/2006-01-30-boondocks_x.htm USA TODAY In that show, King is depicted as having survived the shooting that took his life in 1968. Instead of dying, the civil rights leader slipped into a coma from which he recently emerged. Standing at a podium to address a room full of blacks, King is shocked by what he sees. As the music blares, fistfights break out, some people swill liquor while others engage in sexually explicit dancing. When his calm attempt to get their attention is ignored, King blurts out: "Will you ignorant niggers please shut the hell up?" Then the civil rights icon tells his audience how disappointed he is with their behavior. "It was a dream that little black boys and little black girls would drink from the river of prosperity, freed from the thirst of oppression. But lo and behold, some four decades later, what have I found but a bunch of trifling, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggers." This is followed by King's recital of a litany of problems and failings of blacks that is laced throughout with the n-word. McGruder defends show On Nightline the following day, McGruder defended the show, saying "it's kind of our job to be out there on the edge." In fact, shortly after the King show aired, the cable network renewed The Boondocks for a second season. Most of the people who called me about the brouhaha over the show wanted to know where I stood on this issue, which involves two men I've spoken about pointedly in the past. In a column four years ago, I called McGruder a "creative genius" and a "voice of black consciousness." And during Sharpton's ill-fated 2004 presidential campaign, I said that for much of his time in the public spotlight he was "a civil rights ambulance chaser." But this dustup has more to do with how people should think of King -- and his place in history -- than what I think of Sharpton and McGruder. Soils reputation Like the rest of us, King had his frailties. Even so, it wasn't the depths of his human failings but the heights of his sacrifices for the causes he championed that made him special. And it is his "specialness" that I think was soiled by this episode of McGruder's show. "We think Aaron McGruder came up with a thought-provoking way of not only showing Dr. King's bravery but also of reminding us of what he stood and fought for," Cartoon Network said in a statement it released. I doubt its reaction would be the same if McGruder produced an episode in which former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir returned from the dead and repeatedly called a group of Jews kikes. And I don't think the network would simply call "thought-provoking" an episode in which a resurrected Cesar Chavez, this nation's most important Mexican-American leader, over and over again called his people wetbacks. McGruder makes a good point when his cartoon character talks about the failings of some blacks to live up to King's dream. But while I still think McGruder is a genius, I believe he went too far in this episode. By having King make such flagrant public use of a word that his cartoon character describes as "the ugliest word in the English language," McGruder pushes the slain civil rights leader into the swamp of self-loathing speech. That's a dangerous gambit, given the racially mixed audience to which his show plays. I fear, however, that most will not see -- or hear -- anything beyond King repeatedly calling his people "niggers." |