Because King lived

You know, King is the man who called America "the world's greatest war criminal". Like a lot of great Christians, he was a radical. That's something to think about when assessing e.g. Reverend Wright, some of whose rhetoric is not that far from some things King said.

I'm not drawing by any means drawing an equivalence between Wright and King, much has changed since the 60s and in any case King was clearly more courageous, deeper, and more profound than Wright. But I am saying that the eagerness by Christians on the right to iron flat the complexities of Wright's message and stuff him in some kind of "nasty anti-American" box is as much about election year propaganda than anything else.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prophet not only for the black community but for all humanity. His ideal of all people living together in harmony and freedom beautifully echoes the ideal and directives of the Christian Lord, Jesus Christ. King did not need to speak in hateful terms about the white people who oppressed his people, as do Jeremiah Wright and others of his ilk. Instead, King held out a vision that every man, woman and child of every race, creed and nation would be proud to participate in. He strove in word and deed to end the divisions that kept people apart and oppressed. Those who spew hatred of others, whether white or black, will never achieve King's ideal. Only those who remain committed to his vision of love and acceptance will.

Point taken, King's avoidance of the temptations of racism and his universalist language is one of the greatest things about him. But many of the supposedly scandalous things Wright is saying are not in fact racist. For example, "9/11 is America's chickens coming home to roost", which Ron quotes below, is not really racist but can be seen as an assessments of collective responsibility for past actions. Ron Paul has said very similar stuff about 9/11 being a consequence of our past foreign policy meddling in the Middle East.

Of course, Wright's recent endorsement of Farrakhan is terrible, but most of the stuff he actually said in sermons is not Farrakhan-esque racism.

That's the last I'll say about it.

Astonishing how unanimous the Right is in praising Dr King. I don't recall such accolades back in the 60s. No, he was resented by the Right, not to mention by many interventionist liberals.
If Jeremiah Wright is assasinated I predict that in 40 years or so the Right will be singing his praises too. Easy to love a dead prophet.

I recently spoke with a 30 something hip-hop dj radio guy ,...(a good man actually) who, despite being black, refused to read or listen to Obama's recent (I believe) landmark speech because his anger and hatred and hurt/damage from his years in an otherwise all-white private school had hardened him, apparently irrevocably. I was disgusted with his total denial that Obama was in any way relevant to him. It was as if I was back in Oakland 30 plus years ago when I tried to reason with understandably angry but close-minded Black Panther buddies. To them, MLK was meaningless.

So today, 40 years after MLK's death (whom I actually saw in person when I was a kid, speaking in a tent in my hometown Dallas...taken by a black elderly maid my civil rights activist mother helped after meeting her at the NAACP meeting---eat your heart out) I hear the same from black men in their 30s? It buttresses Pastor T. D. Jakes' point likening racism to molestation as a child. That is a good an open-eye assessment.

That said, I can tell you that as I said then…Martin Luther King WAS relevant. And to doubt the significance of Obama’s success is to deny truth. The audience that is there when he speaks is an amalgam of disparate types who never before coalesced. When I sat and heard the 20 something MLK preach, the audience were those whose grandparents or Great grandparents were slaves. I remember being stricken by the absolutely no-money crowd living in what is now a tony part of Dallas. And I asked my mother then if I would live to see people treat those people like real life humans who suffer and laugh and cry and love and die. And she said, 'I hope so Honey'.

Mother died 5 years after MLK.

Yes, Mr Dreher, I am glad the Right (mostly) acknowledges they were wrong about Dr King, as I am glad the current crop (mostly) acknowledges they were wrong about Iraq.
What worries me is the continued tendency to swoon over the next barrage of propaganda.
Did you not cheer Israel when it attacked Lebanon?
Did you not link to articles calling for total war? For nuclear weapons? For, in effect, genocide?
If Israel attacks Iran will you cheer it on?
Are you capable of uttering the words "Israel is wrong"?
Do you not continue to speak of "Islamo-fascism"? What the hell does that mean? Baruch Goldstein, the American-born Israeli terrorist, who killed 25 Muslims as they prayed, and wounded scores more, is lauded as a martyred saint by radical Zionists, and his tomb is a site of pilgrimage (google his name if you don't believe me). But have I ever heard you, or other Rightists, speak of "Judeao-Fascists"?

The whole fuss over Rev Wright taps into the gap between the two cultures, black and white. Just about any video of a fiery black preacher is going to offend white folks, that's just the nature of the thing.
So much of what he said qualifies as uncomfortable truth- America is run by rich white people, America did kill innocent people at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, etc, ad nauseum, etc, -that I can't help but wonder how he would differ in analysis from that other Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet.

Fair enough. But as someone who was there in Dallas when JFK was shot in my hometown, I totally fail to see any significance in being at the scene of the murder in order to celebrate the anniversary of a fallen hero's death.

And yes, as once and occasional fan of McCain's and a once but not recently supporter of Clinton's candidacy, I actually think it rather obvious why they went to Memphis instead of speaking in Penn or Indiana, etc... But hey, I do appreciate what McCain said when he fell on his sword about voting against MLK's being honored as a national holiday. (Isn’t it true that his state of Arizona still does not recognize it or has that changed?) President Reagan was vocally against the MLK holiday so this shows that when McCain says he was one of 'Reagan's foot soldiers, he was not just whistling 'Dixie'.

Did you not cheer Israel when it attacked Lebanon?
Did you not link to articles calling for total war? For nuclear weapons? For, in effect, genocide?
If Israel attacks Iran will you cheer it on?
Are you capable of uttering the words "Israel is wrong"?

Oh, you're one of those. ...backing...slowly...away... "Oh, hey, look guy, a man throwing doubloons!" RUN!

Politcal posturing in Memphis does not add or take away from a candidate. Obama gave a great speech,and I know he will deliver on his promise long after the celebration is over. McCain ,being a republican ,did a good thing,because many blacks sees the GOP as the enemy. Now it is time for all of us to deliver on the promise of making peace.

Not to make light of this, but it reminds me of a favorite quote from Tom Lehrer:
"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age...
he had been dead for two years."

As a 37 year old, I admit that I don't feel like I've accomplished much in my life. Let's hope that raising two wonderful children counts as much as causing sweeping societal change or creating artistic masterpieces.

Mr. Dreher- You were "only one year old" in 1968? No wonder you seem content to regurgitate the cartoonish stereotyped conservative view of that year as merely "high water mark of hatred and anarchy". Hatred and (long overdue)rebellion, yes, but there was also plenty of positive energy manifest here and around the world during that tumultuous year! Clearly you need to deepen your historical (as well as economic) knowledge! -- Michael McKegney, Brooklyn

Hatred and (long overdue)rebellion, yes, but there was also plenty of positive energy manifest here and around the world during that tumultuous year!

In what sense is a conservative of any sort to understand 1968 as anything but a disastrous year? Seriously.

"In what sense is a conservative of any sort to understand 1968 as anything but a disastrous year? Seriously."

Well, it was the year LBJ announced he would run for re-election. Does that count? hehe

Charles Cosimano, in all due respect,....and I mean that.......your rather stunning post about being in college broadcast news when MLK was shot helps explain why so many of your 2008 posts make reference to your neighborhood bar.

Of course, no conservative worth his salt back in 1968 gave a fig about Martin Luther King. The very fact that he was assassinated that year makes him palatable to conservatives. So I don't want to hear about how Rod Dreher would have been some sort of Freedom Rider in the 1960s.

"Of course, no conservative worth his salt back in 1968 gave a fig about Martin Luther King."

Some people who are conservative now were not conservative in 1968. In 1968 a person who rejected same-sex marriage and abortion would be moderate or average. A person who believed in overthrowing non-Communist regimes that oppressed women and enforced belief in God could plausibly have been on the Left.

Rod Dreher was one-year-old when King died. I was not even born. It's not very logical to assume because he's a conservative among those born in 1967 he'd therefore have been conservative if he'd been born in 1947. It's a different world and set of circumstances. He would've been a child from 1972-1985. In that period the whole liberalist experiment of the 1960s seemed like a failure even to many who believed it. Radical Leftist and Anti-American groups committed terrorist acts. If he'd been born in 1947 he would've been a kid of 1952-1965. That was a period where the Civil Rights movement was largely Christian, moderate Republicans were the main powerholders, malaise with liberalism had not set in, and the most fringe forces were Right-wingers.