CNN Shows Its Weakness With Erickson As A Contributor Going Against Dr. Dyson

I had a chance to watch CNN's Anderson Cooper host a segment on the topic of race with Georgetown University professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and CNN contributor/racial flamethrower Erick Erickson.

After watching that segment (talking about a number of recent racial topics ... including strong comments from Howard Dean calling out the racism with Fox News), one thing is for sure: At times, CNN clearly needs no help from Fox News or MSNBC to look bad.

Hiring Erickson as a contributor is a sign of how low CNN's standards have plummeted. Erickson is like a poor man's Rush Limbaugh.

And, to have someone like him on with an impressive speaker like Dr. Dyson, was pathetic. Were Pat Buchanan and Limbaugh already booked elsewhere?

Check out this interview and enjoy a real-life version of the basketball equivalent of the Los Angeles Lakers (Dr. Dyson) playing your local middle school eighth graders (Erickson).

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

COOPER: Well, the charges of racism have been, frankly, used on both sides of the political aisle over the last week. The question is, are they fair? Or have our conversations about race in this country become nothing more than partisan weapons?

Joining me now, RedState.com blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson.

Professor Dyson, what do you make of this? I mean, is Howard Dean basically just using this just as the right has used this? Or is he -- is he correct?

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Well, clearly the history of racism in this country is not simply about individual bias. It's also about institutional power.

And I think, if there's any validity in what Mr. Dean said, it is to point to the institutional matrix in which this whole thing unfolded. The reality is, is that FOX News has not been friendly toward the interests of or perspectives about African-American people or Latinos or a whole range of other minorities.

And I think that when we begin to sling around the term racism, people get offended and think, well, the right says it. The left says it. Well, bias is one thing; racism is another. Racism is the ability to impose your viewpoints, biased as they are, as normative, and then have the power to reinforce them as necessary, and primarily exclusive.

So I think in that sense the institutional power that's wielded by a place like FOX News certainly has to be called into question, and the fringe, as he pointed out, of the Republican Party has to be taken to task for the racist elements that are there.

COOPER: Erick Erickson, what are your thoughts?

ERICK ERICKSON, REDSTATE.COM: Really? We're going to go there with a news channel that they're racists? You know, we can't have an honest conversation about race in this country because of things like this.

Everyone wants to hurl the racism charge, particular towards Republicans and towards conservatives, simply because they don't agree on policy. And we try to take policy disagreements and turn them into racial issues when they're not. I think it's time to grow up.

Honestly, I can't believe an week after the Andrew Breitbart story broke, we're still talking about Shirley Sherrod instead of the economy, jobs, you name it.

DYSON: Well, but here's the problem. When you say that racism is equally distributed on both sides, I have no doubt. And talk about liberal enlightened racism on the one hand and conservative racism on the other. I think that's an absolutely valid point. The problem is...

COOPER: Wait, do you see -- professor, are you saying there's some sort of difference in racism on the left versus racism on the right?

DYSON: No, absolutely not. I'm saying that racism is racism, period. I'm saying it's deeply embedded in the structure of American society and that people on the left and people on the right certainly have been racist and have promoted and promulgated racist ideas. But let's not pretend Mr. Erickson can't be that naive to say it's more than policy disagreement. Policies are rooted in the culture of racism. Jim Crow was a public policy perpetuated by the legal systems of American society. So don't pretend that the mere reference...

ERICKSON: Yes, but tax cuts and stimulus opposition and opposition to Barack Obama are not racist.

DYSON: The opposition to Barack Obama as a witch doctor? Tell me, sir, why -- why the reference to his ethnic particularity has anything to do with his policy? Be opposed to the public policy.

ERICKSON: That's what I'm wondering.

DYSON: What I'm saying is that the witch doctor motif has been perpetuated by the Tea Party. And on top of that, when we talk more specifically about FOX News....

ERICKSON: No, not perpetuated by the Tea Party, just by a few people who were crazy enough to hold up signs.

DYSON: You know what?

ERICKSON: We can't paint with that broad of a brush.

DYSON: I understand that. But, see, that -- that's the argument. You can't paint it with that broad of a brush. But the same people who never stood for civil rights, who never stood for the progressive realization of freedom for minority people, who never stood for the realization of the basic rights of these individuals, then all of a sudden appear on the scene, take the words that have been used by the progressives -- that is civil rights, liberty and justice -- and then use them in defense of right-wing policies that have no sensitivity toward African-American people.

ERICKSON: We've been talking about liberty since the founding of the country. You know...

DYSON: I'm talking about racial liberty, sir.

COOPER: Wait, wait.

DYSON: I'm talking about liberty rooted in...

COOPER: Let...

DYSON: ... the possibility that black people can be -- be respected. That's what I'm speaking of.

COOPER: Let -- let Erick respond.

ERICKSON: You know, to say that people who weren't there marching in the civil rights movements are all of a sudden marching in the streets, and that's proof of racism or something, no, it's not. It's proof of people being hacked off by the growth of government.

And certainly there's some people out there on both sides. I mean, saying the Tea Party is racist is like saying all Democrats support cop killers, because a few Mumia Abu Jamal people show up and have three hand posters. I mean, we're painting with too broad a brush here, and we should be having a serious conversation about race, but we can't because we're too busy with the stereotyping.

DYSON: Well -- no, no, the reason we can't have a serious conversation on race, because it's very difficult for white Americans to conceive the legitimacy of a viewpoint that says, listen, this is not an equal argument. You can't say that, well, it's racism on the left and racism on the right, which is certainly true.

But the problem is, you never acknowledge the vitriolic history of racial animus in this country. And as a result of that, when you say -- you make strong arguments like I'm against people who are out there marching, and because you didn't support the civil rights marches, that therefore, you're racist. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying you cooperated with and benefited from a society that was unequal and that permitted African-American people to suffer for a great deal. That's what I'm talking about, something concrete and empirically verifiable and specific.

ERICKSON: My family's from Sweden. How exactly did I benefit from that?

DYSON: Wait a minute. Are you are actually trying to tell me that, because your family is from Sweden, that white skin privilege does not extend to them because they are European and not Anglo-Saxon from America? That's ridiculous.

ERICKSON: See, this is why we really can't have this discussion.

DYSON: No, you don't want to have an honest discussion.

ERICKSON: If I want to have -- if I've got to have the sins of generations ago placed on me...

DYSON: No, not the sins.

ERICKSON: ... we can't move on.

DYSON: I'm not talking about the sins, the benefits.

ERICKSON: The benefits. But you're also talking about them as sins. And you know, I would love to be able to move on from this.

DYSON: No, I'm not talking about the sins, I'm talking about the benefits.

ERICKSON: But the benefits are derived from the sins. Therefore, the benefits are also part of the sins.

DYSON: No, no. I'm saying...

ERICKSON: I will admit, it was terrible. But you know, there were people like Charlton Heston, who marched with Martin Luther King, and if he were alive today he'd be out in the Tea Party movement, as well.

DYSON: All I'm telling you, sir.

ERICKSON: Are we going to say someone like that is racist?

DYSON: I'm telling you this. When you go to the Supreme Court, you make arguments predicated upon what? Legal precedent. Why is it that the right wing is capable of acknowledging the historical impact of precedents that were set 200 years ago but can't acknowledge the benefits that they've inherited as a result of the same system?

So all I'm suggesting to you is that the past does have an impact on the present. And when we deal even with, specifically with FOX News, read Media Matters. FOX News claims it did not report the story before Shirley Sherrod resigned, but FOXNews.com reported on the story before she even resigned. So I'm saying we can't get the facts right.

ERICKSON: No. If you're going to quote from Media Matters, then we just -- we can't have this conversation, because Media Matters is nothing but a left-wing hit job.

DYSON: Well, wait a minute. You play for the Los Angeles Lakers. I play for the Miami Heat, but we're both in the NBA. We still have rules that we have to observe on either side.

ERICKSON: Yes, but you know, we also have facts we have to observe on either side, and it seems like no one wants to talk about the objective facts. We'd rather talk about the spin.

DYSON: Well, no. Sir, that's redundant, objective facts. If it's objective, it's factual.

What I'm certainly suggesting to you is that the facts have been printed there. All we have to do is look at them, sir. And when we look at them, we see that FOXnews.com was involved in the story prior to the resignation of Shirley Sherrod. After...

(CROSSTALK)

ERICKSON: For some reason, you and I are looking at the same facts and coming to different conclusions. Which I guess is fair, but I just don't think we can deal legitimately with this conversation when we're having to go back 200 years to who had benefits and who didn't and what have you.

DYSON: No, I'm talking about benefits right now. Look, if you're a white person and you get stopped by the cops, and the cops don't assume that when you real reach for your wallet it's a gun, that's a form of privilege that has nothing to do with how much money you have or what country you're from.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Erick, I'll let you have the final thought, because we've got to go.

ERICKSON: Well, Anderson, I appreciate the time to do this, but I just think we're painting with too broad a brush. And we've just moved to the point where we can't have a civil conversation here.

DYSON: We're very civil. We just disagree.

ERICKSON: Just -- the brush that we're painting, calling people racist and racism. And is the Tea Party or not? We're talking about individuals, and we're painting with a brush that involves groups.

DYSON: We're talking about the collective enterprise -- we're talking about the collective enterprise of American society. Individuals belong to a United States of America. The United States of America benefit from privileges that were extended to certain groups and not to others. So that's empirically verifiable fact.

ERICKSON: There you go.

COOPER: We'll leave it there.

ERICKSON: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: Erick Erickson, Professor Michael Eric Dyson, appreciate both your perspectives. Thank you very much.

DYSON: Thank you.

I love this interview because Erickson clearly is overmatched intellectually and resorts to childish counters against Dr. Dyson.

Still, what is CNN doing with Erickson on the air (besides damaging its own reputation)? The man serves no useful purpose except to show that CNN has at least one extremist nutjob to balance hour after hour of far-right hacks on Fox News and Buchanan on MSNBC.

Mickelson's Success, Struggles Of Woods Brings Out The Inner Racism In Some

This was bound to happen as Phil Mickelson claimed victory in the Masters on Sunday in Augusta, Ga. at Augusta National Golf Club - home of the legendary tournament. Mickelson clearly is a feel-good story with what his wife is going through with cancer and the stand-up way in which he has carried himself through these trying and challenging times. So, as Mickelson won, a lot of us could not help but think - at least a little bit - about the racial factor in his victory. Some, thought about it more so than others and some thought about it more viciously than others.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" picked up on one such individual who celebrated Mickelson's victory by launching a vicious racist attack on Tiger Woods.

Here is how it begins:

Count James Edwards, host of the Memphis-based white nationalist, anti-Semitic radio show called “Political Cesspool”, is among those likely celebrating Phil Mickelson’s victory at the Masters golf tournament on Sunday. Not because Mickelson is a feel-good story, winning the green jacket as his cancer-stricken wife watched, but because Mickelson is not Tiger Woods. That is to say, Mickelson is not black.

Yeah, you can see where this is headed:

The Masters “is civilized. All civilization channels basic desires and instincts into something higher and nobler. Lincoln and the abolitionists did their best to put an end to it, and the Jews and liberals are trampling down what remnants are left.”

Edwards was still warming up.

Then along came Tiger Woods, a “mixed race Negro with the skills to break down the last sport of white refuge, golf, and its citadel, Augusta National,” Edwards lamented. “He was the black messiah of sports. The long awaited one who would tear down the last remnants of segregation.”

Most would see that as a good thing. Not Edwards, of course. He cited a litany of rancid racial stereotypes to explain why.

“He’s got the sexual mores of the most stereotypical ‘nigger’ that even the most hardened, bigoted cracker could imagine,” wrote Edwards, who opposes “primitivism,” homosexuality, loveless sex, feminism and abortion. “Oh, and he apparently only wants white women. From his Nordic model wife to the dumpiest diner waitress, all of his trysts are with white women.”

“Segregation in the old South was all about maintaining racial integrity and civilization,” Edwards continued. “About keeping our wives and daughters safe from sexual animals like Tiger. About building up and maintaining what is noble and good. If the ‘black messiahs’ like Tiger Woods and Martin Luther King Jr. are such animals, what about the mere mortals among them? Do we want to find out?”

Contained in that lengthy excerpt would be all of the racist stereotypes generally used against black men over the years. All tied up in the neat little package of your classic racist.

Utah State Senator Wants To Create Holiday Honoring A "Gun Pioneer" On Martin Luther King Day

I almost did not believe this story until I checked a couple of different sources.

If you ever needed any more evidence that some Republicans just don't get it when it comes to issues related to race then you have to check out this story on Utah State Sen. Mark Madsen.

It seems Madsen, a Republican (although that label probably will become obvious in a few more sentences) wants to create a holiday honoring John Moses Browning, who is a native of Utah, and is considered a "gun pioneer" by some people - on the same day as MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY. Are you kidding? Apparently, there is some controversy as to when Browning's birthday actually is, but supposedly it is around Jan. 21. Madsen wants to combine Browning's proposed holiday with MLK Day.

The depth and breadth of the stupidity of this is almost overwhelming and evident in the comment below from Madsen.

MADSEN: I see them as complimentary. We’ll see if they can take it in the spirit it’s intended.

When he says "they" I wonder who he is talking about, exactly.

Madsen, who wants to meet with the NAACP (yeah, it's amazing) to discuss his proposal, apparently has some support from Utah State Senate Majority Leader Scott Jenkins (also, you guessed it, a Republican):

JENKINS: Guns keep peace. I kind of like the idea of making his birthday a holiday. I’m all over that.

Are these guys too ignorant to understand how Dr. King was murdered and how that remains an open wound to a lot of Americans more than 40 years later? It's stunning someone could be so insensitive and it makes me wonder if he proposed this on purpose.

But, in an almost classic case of projection (from a guy who also said he wanted to meet with the NAACP), the story ends with this little nugget from Madsen:

"If the race baiters are out there looking for an opportunity, I'm not going to give it to them. I'll walk away and find another day."

The irony of that comment from Madsen is that race is not mentioned in the story until he brings it up.

Madsen would not have had to walk away if he had not walked there in the first place.

Daily Herald:
http://www.heraldextra.com/legislature/article_1ed94dc1-decb-5dcc-bfc0-681ffcb1e6f8.html

ESPN’s Mike Greenberg’s ‘Martin Luther Coon’ Slip … Racist Or Honest Slip Up?

Mike Greenberg, who most notably is co-host of the Mike and Mike in the Morning show on ESPN Radio (also shown on television), made a big boo-boo on Martin Luther King Day.

He referred to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr as “Martin Luther Coon” before he quickly corrected himself (minus an apology at the time although, to be fair, the apology did come later). As many of you know, "coon" is a racist insult used against black people.

Some see the significant slip as racist while others view it as Greenberg simply butchering his own words before quickly correcting himself.

As one might expect, the slip by Greenberg erupted into a full-blown controversy that prompted the customary statement of apology:

I just came home from the Knicks game and found out about the mess that was created by my garbling a sentence on our show this morning; I apologize for not addressing it sooner.

And I’m sorry that my talking too fast – and slurring my words – might have given people who don’t know our show the wrong impression about us, and about me.

I feel horrible about that, because nothing could be further away from who I am and what our show is about.

I would never say anything like that, not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind, and neither would anyone associated with our show, and I’m very sorry that my stumble this morning gave so many people the opposite impression.

I suspect it was just a slip by Greenberg although a number of people see the words as a look into his heart. No one knows but Mike Greenberg.

I certainly DO NOT think this (alone) rises to the level of firing based on what seems to be known about him and this situation.

With no hesitation, I choose to give Mike Greenberg the benefit of the doubt on this one. BUT, wow was that a bad mistake on his part.

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/18/mike-greenberg-mlk-gaffe_n_427558.html

SodaHead:
http://www.sodahead.com/sports/mike-greenberg-calls-mlk-a-coon-is-mark-greenberg-racist/question-830179/

Despicable Beck To Hold Rally On Anniversary Of Dr. King's 'I Have A Dream Speech'

On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a historic and important address that we have since come to know as the “I Have a Dream” speech. During that speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King called for the people and the government to bring racial equality to reality and to end discrimination in the United States of America. To commemorate Dr. King’s important, sensational and inclusive speech, the divisive and hostile opportunist, right-wing freak Glenn Beck, plans to exploit the great things that Dr. King fought for to advance his bigoted points of view and make a few bucks selling books.

Here is the entire text from the “I Have a Dream” speech (I put it all here because people need to see the entire speech and not just the selected excerpts):

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

So now we go from the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest men who ever lived, to someone like Glenn Beck who is set to spit in the faces of black people by holding his rally on the anniversary of “I Have a Dream” and in Washington D.C.

Here is a Facebook comment from CNN contributor Roland Martin, ”Guys like Beck HATE that speech. It was about demanding the govt. do what it’s supposed to do. This is an attempt to rebuke MLK’s vision.”

Roland is correct. Men like Beck selectively quote Dr. King by taking out of context bits and pieces of his speeches to slap down people of color. A lot of people have been conditioned to like Dr. King. Many of these people who have been conditioned to like (or grudgingly accept) Dr. King would be badmouthing him if he were alive today.

From the disgraceful Glenn Beck’s Web site:

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

- On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

This is an intentional insult to Dr. King and to black people. It is not an accident that Beck has chosen this date. Gleefully, Beck is exploiting the great deeds of Dr. King to insult black Americans, disrespect Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and to make money selling a book.

From the Daily Kos:

When Glenn Beck called for his national rally at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 2010, he twisted the memory of the day for a country that has evolved from slavery to elect it’s first black president. MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech there 46 years ago. President Obama accepted the Democratic nomination last year. Tsk, tsk, ego issues, Glenn?

This is no accident and it speaks lowly of a man with a dark heart and a mean streak when it comes to minorities who don’t fit his vision of what people of color should be like in the United States of America.

This is a jab back and black people.

This is disgusting by Glenn Beck’s standards (and that is saying a lot).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … A Republican? Maybe He Was, But …

This is not necessarily breaking news that there are some on the conservative side of the political spectrum who assert that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. may have been a Republican. Whether he was or was not, however, mostly is irrelevant. This issue is back in the news as a group of black conservatives have sponsored a billboard that has brought the debate back into focus.

Really, this is nothing new, however.

Many blacks affiliated with the Republicans until they felt as if they were abandoned by the party and thus moved to the Democrat Party.

Here is how the Fox News story begins:

Who knew?

A billboard proclaiming that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican has stirred a religious and political hornets’ nest in Houston, where a church leader is trying to draw black voters into the Republican Party.

The jumbo-sized roadside ad made its contentious claim for about a week — until a local black activist charged that the sign unjustly politicized King’s legacy and was hurting his community by telling a “blatant lie.”

“Martin Luther King may have very well believed in some of the Christian principles of the Republican Party, but Dr. Martin Luther King was not a Republican or a Democrat,” said Quanell X, who heads the New Black Panther Party in Houston.

“Dr. King was bigger than a political party – he was a humanitarian, and so to attach him exclusively to any party is to devalue his humanitarian global status,” he said. “We were insulted … by the billboard because it was a blatant lie.”

I don’t know if it’s a blatant lie, but it certainly is old news. The Republican Party that existed during the day of Dr. King does not exist today.

More from the Fox News story:

Quanell X told FOXNews.com he was pleased that he had succeeded in getting the billboard removed. He added that King would never have embraced the present-day GOP, which he said had “racist elements.”

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be with the party of Newt Gingrich, he would not be with the party of Sarah Palin, he would not be with the party of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or Sean Hannity,” he said.

The Republican Party is not one that looks comforting or inviting to many minorities.

Perhaps this will spark some dialogue, but hopefully that dialogue begins within the Republican Party by following the Michael Jackson song and take a look at the “Man in the Mirror.”

Maybe a dialogue is a good thing if Republicans seriously ask themselves why they do not appeal to minorities (and, no, this did not just start with Barack Obama) and, in particular, blacks.

Rather than ask was Dr. King a Republican, a better question might be: Would Dr. King be a Republican if he was alive today?

I don’t think so.

Martin Luther King a Republican radio ad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/18/AR2006101801754.html

Martin Luther King billboard:
http://www.mofopolitics.com/2009/07/12/video-martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-republican-billboard-causes-uproar/

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/07/13/martin-luther-king-jr-was_ws_230729.html

Essence:
http://www.essence.com/news_entertainment/news/articles/martin_luther_king_jr_was_he_republican