A Facebook acquaintance of mine posted the attached photograph of Dr. King and then Vice President Nixon. The commentary accompanying the photograph was about Dr. King and Vice President Nixon meeting to discuss how to overcome Democratic opposition to civil rights initiatives in 1957 and the thought that you would not hear about this meeting or association in today's liberal press.I was going to let the Martin Luther King Day pass as I normally do with thoughts about the disenfranchised, the oppression of poverty and many lives lost and destroyed in the pursuit of civil rights and we might as well say human rights here in the U.S. and elsewhere. The day was almost over. Then I read Sarah Palin's Facebook post which started with sort of a "have a happy MLK day" like it was a free ice cream cone day and which ended with a suggestion to President Obama that "he stop playing the race card."
Without getting into a discussion of the successes and failures of the Obama administration I want to go first to Palin's comment. "Nice white girl card." Enough said.
Secondly I'm posting my comment on Facebook to the photograph and original comment:
Nixon had a fairly decent record on civil rights which was at the time of this photograph primarily about voter rights for blacks. Democratic opposition to civil rights changes were concerns over loss of the southern Democratic vote, which was obviously in the face of obstacles to registration a white vote. It's always about strategies to get the vote. It was then and it is now. Nixon bailed shortly after this photo on his support for King. Lyndon Johnson was the senate majority leader at the time and did lobby for a weaker version of the civil rights initiative. By the time of the 1960 Presidential election between Nixon and Kennedy Nixon had all but abandoned his communications with King. Politics at it's best by both parties. Now the southern Democratic vote (white) has totally shifted to being a southern Republican (white) vote.
King was arrested on a phony charge in 1960. Nixon ignored the whole situation in fear of losing Republican votes. Kennedy intervened on the arrest at the risk of losing the southern Democratic vote. Nixon won only 32% of the black vote, less than Eisenhower's 54% and Goldwater's 92% and lost the election by 112,000 votes. Politics at it's best. The big guys play the small guys.
Today's conservatives would paint the world simply, as we know, in black and white. It makes a nice sound bite or visual bite to show Dr. King with Vice President Nixon (Republican). In reality one of them was changing the world for all minorities while the other was positioning for a Presidential Election. There's no question that John Kennedy's action in the 1960 election in regards to Dr. King was also about positioning for the same Presidential Election. Either Nixon or Kennedy may have been doing what they thought was right to get to the Oval Office where they could do whatever right and better thing they thought should be done, just as Senator Lyndon Johnson was doing in the Senate with the civil rights card and as he would do during his Presidency. The same games are played today with the addition of live, dynamic media, and as the more right-wing faction has their issues the left-wing liberals similarly have trouble picking any color other than not black and not white. It's a mess.
We should all have the dream of Dr. King. We live today in a diverse culture and barring unspeakable options that is our future.
Finally I have to post my own Facebook comment of the day (intentionally short to flow to Twitter): I am not sure that anyone who calls themselves either a Democrat or a Republican understands what it truly means to be an American.
If not just some of use, but all of us were set upon by dogs, beaten or sprayed with fire hoses and shot at by bad guys in the Middle East this democracy might get something done.
P.S. This is a blog about not having a job and the trek to find one. Even as a geezer white guy I'll find a better one, more quickly and easier, with more pay than most minorities, some of whom will never find a job.
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