Poems for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2015

It's that time of year again when educators, church leaders, and parents begin to look for short poems that may be recited at Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As usual, I am seeing a spike in the search for my two poems honoring Dr. King, "Remembering a Life" and "Marking Martin's Day."

One of the things that has given me joy as I get older is discovering that so many different people have used the poems--from elementary school and college students to ministers delivering sermons on that day. Sometimes the poems are recited and sometimes printed in school and church bulletins.

But lately my poem "Behind the Color Blind" seems to be used more often for recitations. I think that's partly because of its heavy use of end rhyme and a steady rhythm. While those poems were written a while ago, I'm glad people continue to appreciate them.

'Selma' Director Ava DuVernay Talks with MHP About Women in the Civil Rights Movement (Video)

‘Selma’ director Ava DuVernay visits #nerdland Film director Ava DuVernay, nominated for a Golden Globe for the critically-acclaimed “Selma,” joined host Melissa Harris-Perry Sunday for an extensive interview. Watch the full conversation, on MHPshow.com.

Melissa Harris Perry played clips of her interview with Selma director Ava DuVernay on her MSNBC show earlier today. They discussed Martin Luther King Jr.'s infidelity and how DuVernay chose to explore it from Coretta Scott King's perspective, and the two talked about DuVernay's decision to focus on the women in the movement in her award-nominated film.

Later they discussed the LBJ controversy around the movie, which is an "unfortunate distraction," says DuVernay, from the importance of the film and what Civil Rights leaders accomplished. The film is not about President Lyndon B. Johnson, she declares. I agree.

From the perspective of ethics while crafting creative nonfiction, I can nitpick her decision to misrepresent LBJ as being against voting rights for African-Americans (and I have nitpicked it on Facebook before), but I also think that ultimately this is a minor issue in the shadow of the film's significance and DuVernay's vision.

So, I disagree with former Johnson aide Joseph A. Califano Jr.'s assertion that the film should be barred from awards and no one should see it. That's just petty, old white man pouting. Furthermore, he exaggerates greatly when he says the Selma campaign and the march across the bridge was LBJ's idea. I listened to the recording of the conversation between LBJ and MLK that Califano references, and while it's clear LBJ was not anti-voting rights, it's equally clear he was not the mind behind the Selma strategy.

I think Califano misinterprets King's relative silence as LBJ talks to him as that of an ignorant man being advised to take actions he has not already considered rather than simply a wise man letting the President of the United States of America talk. Plus, the Selma campaign was already underway before King's talk with LBJ on January 15, 1965.

DuVernay, who is up for a Golden Globe tonight, says her goal with Selma was to recreate the spirit of the movement. She was not trying to recreate history in detail.

Notice that I did not step to the "Well, look at Spielberg's Lincoln and that Frederick Douglass was left out completely" argument to support DuVernay's decision. MHP tugged on that one today, but for me, "tit for tat" arguments are usually emerge from small thoughts.

Apparently King is shown in an authentically human way, too, in the movie. We see him taking out the trash, joking about diets with friends, and loving music, say people who have seen the film already. So, I look forward to a more realistic portrayal of this great but humanly flawed man.

The best thing this movie can do is make the current and future generation of young people grasp the cost of freedom for African-Americans. Unfortunately, too many remain clueless about the past that created the present. DuVernay says that as she went around the country with the film she discovered deep ignorance about what happened in Selma. Some people thought the name "Selma" was the name the name of a character played by Oprah Winfrey.

I'd like to say I'm shocked, but in viewing the key words used when people are searching for my Martin Luther King Jr. poem, "Remembering a Life," I detect a great deal of ignorance about King himself. Some people think that King is someone who wrote a famous poem called "I Have a Dream." So, given that people remain ignorant of who Dr. King was despite the spotlight we shine on him, is it any surprise people don't know the actual history of that walk across the bridge in Selma? It's not as though this moment is covered much in schools.

Selma opened in theaters a few days ago.

What did Martin Luther King Jr. mean, "A riot is the language of the unheard"?

Last year about this time, a whole year before the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of 18-year-old Mike Brown, CBS's 60 Minutes posted an overtime segment featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. The segment is part of last year's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights March on Washington. Its headline is the King quote you may have heard repeated since the tear gas began to cloud Ferguson's night air:

"A riot is the language of the unheard."

The overtime piece features Mike Wallace's 1966 interview with King in which he asked the Civil Rights leader how he felt about a growing number of Black people rejecting non-violent methods. Here is part of what was said, but I hope you watch the full video interview yourself.

MIKE WALLACE: There's an increasingly vocal minority who disagree totally with your tactics, Dr. King.

KING: There's no doubt about that. I will agree that there is a group in the Negro community advocating violence now. I happen to feel that this group represents a numerical minority. Surveys have revealed this. The vast majority of Negroes still feel that the best way to deal with the dilemma that we face in this country is through non-violent resistance, and I don't think this vocal group will be able to make a real dent in the Negro community in terms of swaying 22 million Negroes to this particular point of view. And I contend that the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

WALLACE: How many summers like this do you imagine that we can expect?

KING: Well, I would say this: we don't have long. The mood of the Negro community now is one of urgency, one of saying that we aren't going to wait. That we've got to have our freedom. We've waited too long. So that I would say that every summer we're going to have this kind of vigorous protest. My hope is that it will be non-violent. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and socially destructive. I would hope that we can avoid riots, but that we would be as militant and as determined next summer and through the winter as we have been this summer. And I think the answer about how long it will take will depend on the federal government, on the city halls of our various cities, and on White America to a large extent. This is where we are at this point, and I think White America will determine how long it will be and which way we go in the future.

Lagniappe: I also recommend this editorial by Rebecca Carroll at the Guardian, "Why are white people scared of black people's rage at Mike Brown's death?" Carroll addresses her complaint directly to a white audience. Here's a key passage:

You are the ones who created this godforsaken racist system by using your circumstantial power and privilege 400 years ago to institutionalize white supremacy. Now use that power and privilege you still have, 400 years later, to dismantle it.

And please don’t quibble about whether you have any direct lineage to the architects of racism. You are benefitting from it, so you have a direct responsibility to figure out how to undo it. Because maybe you’ve seen what happens when we black people try to undo it in 2014 – they call in the National Guard.

Finally, if you've been wondering where people who are more informed about what's happening in Ferguson get their news, try this Vox.com list of reporters who are tweeting news live from the ground in Ferguson.

Recommended reading for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Because I keep a reminder of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy constantly posted in the side bar of this blog; because I have written two poems as a tribute to Dr. King that children, college students, and speakers recite every year on MLK Day and again in April; and because I have a page at my first website dedicated to him and his sacrifice, I hadn't planned to post anything this Martin Luther King Day. However, I have been sharing an article on Facebook by HamdenRice at the Daily Kos that I think is one of the best pieces I've ever read about Dr. Martin King Jr., and his legacy.

HamdenRice's article is entitled, "Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did." Yes, that's a confrontational, but it's also right.

No matter what your ethnic background, you should read that article. It will free you from seeing Dr. King through the "Care Bears" lens our culture's crafted of him, disabuse you of thinking "all King did was march," and force you to consider the kind of world African-Americans faced daily before Dr. King got to work. The article will also help some people understand why African-Americans are so protective and possessive of King's legacy. And that's all I'll say because I don't want to give anything else away about the piece. Just please read it!

On another note regarding general ignorance about Martin Luther King Jr., CNN's has an article up entitled "The greatest MLK speeches you never heard." If the only thing you know of MLK is the "I Have A Dream," speech, then read the CNN article, too, and if that is the case then you definitely need to read the article at Daily Kos.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

I hope we all use it as a day of service and reflection.

What's Wrong With Being "Color Blind" to Race? Teacher Jane Elliott Explains (Video)

In the Oprah Show video below, diversity trainer Jane Elliott explains the fallacy hidden in the statement "I don't see color." Elliott is known for the famous blue eyes/brown eyes exercise she created and conducted in the 1960s. This Oprah show aired in 1992.

You've probably heard people say "I don't see color" to assert that they are not racist or are more fair than others. Elliott says bluntly that people who say this are actually racist whether they know it or not because the statement implies there's something wrong with being a person of color. In fact, research indicates that adopting a color blind philosophy about race does not make it possible to not see color; it makes people likely not to recognize racism and racist images when they see them.

One thing Elliott does in the video below is unpack that color blind statement. She begins with a common delcaration from teachers: "I don't care if you're black or brown or green with purple stripes; I'm going to treat you all the same." She asks, "How many of you have seen earthlings that were green with purple stripes?" And then she says the "purple stripes" statement is problematic (racially biased) "because it lumps all people of color with aliens. And it's what we do in this country: we consider those who are people of color not really citizens of this country," Elliott says.  (Somebody say, "Obama birth certificate.")



I examine the problem of saying "I don't see color" in my poem "Behind the Color Blind." Students have recited the poem at Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations and anti-racism vigils. Perhaps they do so at Martin Luther King Day events because so often people reference King's dream that one day his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" to justify an "I don't see color" approach.

In various blog posts and online comments in the past, I've said that people of the dominant culture often won't acknowledge that society conditions us to believe in white supremacy and therefore it's likely they are at least subconsciously racist. The teachings of White supremacy infect the mind in this culture, even the subconscious of people of color. A few years back, an episode of the cancelled show Lie To Me examined subconscious racial bias. It also publicized the Harvard's bias test, which you can take online

Part one of this Oprah Show video may be viewed at this link and you can see the blue eyes/ brown eyes experiment as conducted on the Oprah show here. People lost their minds.

50 Years After Letter from a Birmingham Jail: White Clergy, Journalists Revisit Dr. King's Masterful Prose (Video)

Birmingham police arrested Martin Luther King Jr. on 12 April 1963,

and he penned his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" while

imprisoned, slipping it as a crumpled wad of paper to his friend

Clarence Jones. Jones did not know what it was until later.

On its 50th anniversary, rather than comment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I'm commemorating its significance by sharing what others have said about the letter.

First, CNN has a report on how the Civil Rights leader passed the letter from his jail cell to his adviser and assistant speech writer, Clarence Benjamin Jones. Until I saw the article, I had not envisioned its delivery quite this way:

[King] was unshaven, dirty and dejected. King had spent several days alone in solitary confinement with no mattress in a filthy dark jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama.

"Take this out of here," King whispered as he grabbed Jones' belt and stuffed balled-up newspapers and toilet tissue down his pants.

Jones, King's lawyer, wondered if King was starting to lose it. He didn't pay attention to what King had given him -- it was just a mish-mash of words and arrows scribbled on bits of paper.

"Not until five days later did I actually read a mimeographed copy of the letter," says Jones. "To be honest with you, I was more worried about bail money, not what he had written."

Yes, that "mish-mash of words and arrows scribbled on bits of paper" turned out to be the famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." In it, King responds to the eight white church leaders, supposed moderate allies of his era, who opposed his public protest demonstrations against segregation.  These clergymen regarded him as an interloper who should go home and stop rocking the boat. They were content to let the status quo of segregation go unchallenged indefinitely.

Once Jones realized what King had given him, he released the letter.

Following the initial circulation of King’s letter in Birmingham as a mimeographed copy, it was published in a variety of formats: as a pamphlet distributed by the American Friends Service Committee and as an article in periodicals such as Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, the New York Post, and Ebony magazine. The first half of the letter was introduced into testimony before Congress by Representative William Fitts Ryan (D-NY) and published in the Congressional Record. One year later, King revised the letter and presented it as a chapter in his 1964 memoir of the Birmingham Campaign, Why We Can’t Wait, a book modeled after the basic themes set out in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

See more about the history of the letter in an article at Stanford University's website.

In the Times Picayune's video published today, white New Orleans pastors discuss the relevancy of Dr. King's letter to the Christian church and society in 2013.

Columnist Jarvis DeBerry at the Times Picayune asks the pastors, "Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?"

Rev. David Crosby of First Baptist in New Orleans answers that the church is always in danger of being captured by the "culture" and "the powers that be."

Shawn Anglim, pastor of First Grace United Methodist Church, says if the canon of Christian scripture were still open today, King's letter could be included, that King's words approach the weight of the Apostle's Paul's New Testament epistles on many levels. Later in the video, Anglim associates the struggle for African-Americans to attain equality in the 1960s with LGBQT citizens now seeking equality. He says that at his church he is speaking to his congregation and telling him that to be "gay is okay."

Other pastors identify other injustices that they think the Christian church has not adequately addressed, such as children in poverty and Louisiana's excessively high incarceration rates. You may watch the video to hear more of the discussion, and DeBerry's article has links to various pastors' written thoughts on King's letter. You will also see in the comments on his article that some white Southerners (I conclude) still want to argue that King was insignificant or that we should stop talking about race or of race in American history in any way that acknowledges black suffering.

Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry also talked about the letter over the weekend on her MSNBC show. Here's video, which includes clips of Tulane students reciting parts of King's letter.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Two years ago, Jay Smooth of IllDoctrine reflected on "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and felt so strongly about it that he recorded a video of himself reciting parts in which King challenges the assumption that a minister should fear being called "an extremist" when it comes to obtaining justice. I've posted that video again below.



And as many readers of this blog know, I keep my digital remembrance of Dr. King up online at king.writingjunkie.net.

Another Poem for Martin Luther King Day, Simple with Rhyme

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. He was born January 15, 1929, and tomorrow the nation celebrates. President Ronald Reagan signed the order for the holiday on November 2, 1983, and Coretta Scott King, according to Time.com, said then "This is not a black holiday; it is a people's holiday."

I remember when whether or not to make his birthday a national holiday was bitterly debated in the U.S.A., and now I look at how the celebration has grown, especially the movement to make the day a day of service, and I think that Dr. King would be proud. Americans should be proud also that its legislators listened to the people and approved King's birthday as a Federal holiday and that at least once a year we contemplate his life, the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, and the significance of social justice in a nation with a Declaration of Independence espousing the unalienable rights of humans.

When I started this post, I had planned to only post the image above and say, "Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day," but as I wrote, a simple poem emerged with some other thoughts about poetry's place in the country. The poem and my thoughts are posted below the line here.

---

Marking Martin's Day
By Nordette N. Adams

Some mark this day with service.
Some mark this day to shop.
Some mark this day to tell us
the struggle never stops.
Some grimace, grumbling still
that we mark this day at all,
but Martin's shout for justice
helped us answer freedom's call.
He moved America
to strive for its ideals
to uphold its Declaration
and recall its founding zeal to build
a glorious nation
that stands for liberty.

King pricked the people's

conscience to seek equality.

© 2012 Nordette Adams

I present this poem not only in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth and legacy, but also in honor of my mother, a school teacher who died November 12, 2008. She required that her students and her daughter memorize and recite poetry. She loved special school programs for which she would have her elementary students learn and recite poems, often poems with messages about making a better world or striving to attain a nobler character.

As a poet, I know that we poets keep an eye on poetry critics and academics and are influenced by advice to not ever write didactic, accessible verse: if you want to wreck your reputation as a contemporary poet, then write for the masses. Experts in the ivory tower will scorn you. But lately, looking at this nation and in particular the violence in the cities, especially my city, New Orleans, I've been thinking less about the poetry police and more about whether poets can make any difference in the lives of children by writing poetry on current issues that a school teacher can use.

There was a time when ordinary people knew the names of poets. What happened? Are we sure television's popularity only is at fault? Perhaps the poets themselves deserve some blame for withdrawing to caves, to chambers concerned only with themselves.

I don't remember my mother's students resenting her because she made them memorize poems. I remember them loving her for it and the joy on many of her students' faces as they recited these poems in groups. Perhaps some poets forget that it was most likely an accessible poem with a clear rhythm and rhyme that drew us to poetry when we were children ourselves. We grew and learned that there's more to poetry than rhyme and tales of flowers and teen love.

Yes, but there is also more than ego to poetry and more to loving language than an appreciation of Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot, both of whom wrote lighter verse sometimes. Children do not fall in love with poetry because their fourth grade teachers assigned them to read or recite "The Waste Land."

I'm sure this topic is also on my mind because every year starting around December I see people looking for poems about Martin Luther King Jr. because they end up at my poem "Remembering a Life," a poem honoring King that I wrote for my children. I'm glad it's reached other children.

Church Building Burned Down After Obama's Win Stands Again: Fitting News on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday

I remember hearing the news in November 2008 that someone had burned down Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Massachusetts in backlash for President Barack Obama's historic win, and I thought then, "And so it begins." With Obama's election it seemed there would be a rise in white supremacist violence, and there was for a while. That's the bad news.



The good news is that the church has been rebuilt. See CNN video above. It seems fitting that its rise from the ashes is reported on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. He was born this day in 1929.

If you read the article at CNN, I recommend also that you skim the comments section.

Jay Smooth on MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail

In the video below, Jay Smooth recites excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on the topic of extremism. You can read Jay's post at Illdoctrine.com.



I listened and thought that we have Talk Like a Pirate day and Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Perhaps we should also have a Speak the Words of MLK Day.

"Remembering a Life" Read at MLK Celebration in Maryland

I discovered today that my poem "Remembering a Life" honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was read at a Hagerstown Community College celebration for MLK Day 2011. This is not the first time the poem has been recited at such an event. I started to learn of people reciting it and some of my other poems at special occasions around 2006, and I think I wrote about the recitations in 2008.

However, this event at HCC was captured on video by the area's local newspaper, the Herald Mail. You can watch the video here.

According to the paper's article:

"... and alumna Leticia West read a poem about King called “Remembering a Life” by Nordette Adams. ... The program concluded with a dramatic rendition of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech by the Rev. Darin Mency of Greater Campher Temple."

You can identify Ms. West reading in the video because the screen shows her name and the poem's title as she reads part of the second stanza.

The poem was also read at an Oklahoma State University MLK program this year and at Tufts University, and in 2008 in Roanoke, Virginia, at a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of King's death a speaker quoted the poem.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Intellectual Property, and Us

This MLK day, I want to share a public radio broadcast I heard on WWNO Saturday, "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Public Imagination." Its producers at On the Media describe the show as follows:

On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. did what he’d done countless times before, he began building a sermon. And in his sermons King relied on improvisation - drawing on sources and references that were limited only by his imagination and memory. It’s a gift – and a tradition - on full display in the 'I Have A Dream' speech but it’s also in conflict with the intellectual property laws that have been strenuously used by his estate since his death. OTM producer Jamie York speaks with Drew Hansen, Keith Miller, Michael Eric Dyson and Lewis Hyde about King, imagination and the consequences of limiting access to art and ideas.

The show, which I've embedded in this post, is packed with information about how King built his speeches and sermons, borrowing from numerous references and other preachers--a common practice. It's of particular interest to me because I've been studying notions of authors and authorship in rhetoric and writing lately.



NPR has an excellent database of the Civil Rights leader's speeches and its shows about King over the years. Once you get started listening, it's hard to stop.

Also, today LearnOutLoud.com sent out a link to to Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize speech and I thought it was worth sharing. You can listen to the full speech at American Rhetoric and read the transcript.

Over at my Martin Luther King page at WritingJunkie.net, I always see hits go up starting around the beginning of December and continue until mid-April. Many of the visitors are looking for my poem "Remembering a Life," and Google or some other search engine sends them to that page. So, I don't say much new on MLK day usually because I've said what I have to say.

Does Glenn Beck Think He's Jeremiah, The Weeping Prophet?

Is it really news news that Bill Maher thinks Glenn Beck wants to be a religious leader? I'm not sure Beck wants to be a preacher the way Maher thinks he does, complete with cathedral and tax exemption, but I do think Beck wants his true believers to think he may be some kind of prophet. That's part of Beck schtick, his gimmick. He says in one of the clips below, "I'm turning into a fricking televangelist."



Talking about some of Michael Steele's antics a while back, I dubbed Glenn Beck "The Weeping Prophet of Doom." Only someone with a knowledge of the Bible would get that reference, which is to Jeremiah, a prophet from the Old Testament, who is also known as "The Weeping Prophet." In no way do I mean to say Beck has a mandate from God. What I'm saying is that he pretends to have a godly connection with his Jeremiah impersonation. And he's even tried to claim he's a kindred spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., at times.

How often does Beck weep for the nation on his show? How often does he push emotion rather than fact?

He does so more times than I will ever watch him, and consistently attempts to duck responsibility for his words and behavior by saying he's a commentator not a journalist. I think on some level the man is nuts. Others declare Beck's weeping is an orchestrated bit of play acting. Would it be scarier if we learned he suffers from some kind of psychosis and actually thinks he's been called by God to change America? People are willing to follow him blindly as it is. So, what's worse, his believing it or his consciously manipulating the public?

Young Turks has a clip of Beck faking a cry for a photo shoot. While they are fair and say that it is a photo shoot at which he may have been asked to cry, the footage does beg the question: How much of Beck's weeping is fakery? That question takes us back to a Maher belief that Beck is crazy like a fox.

The Young Turks guy says the only thing that matters to Beck is publicity, which in my opinion, means Beck is just one more media whore like Rush Limbaugh. They're both willing to destroy America, make statements that they may not even believe, all in the name of ratings and dollars, the dark side of capitalism.

So, with evidence that Beck fakes concern for the nation, what does this make Fox News, the network that gives Beck a televised form each day?

Happy Easter! Also Today is 42nd Anniversary of MLK's Death

Happy Easter Everyone! As usual, Christians around the world rejoice, but Easter this year also happened to fall on the 42nd anniversary of Martin Luther King's death. More about that later.

First, CNN's running a slideshow of Easter celebrations from around the planet. For Christians this holiday is celebrated as as the anniversary of Jesus the Messiah's resurrection. However, the spring celebration is much older than Christianity, dating back to Pagan rebirth festivals.

Acknowledging that it is the 42nd anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's death, CNN is also running commentary from Eddie S. Glaude, the chair of the Center for African-American Studies and the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African-American Studies at Princeton University. He's written the piece King's Easter message.

Back in 2007, I learned that my poem about King, "Remembering A Life," was used at an official, public commemoration of the 40th anniversary of King's death in Virginia. It's seems appropriate to add that since today is April 4th and April is also National Poetry Month.

A friend at BlogHer told me that today is also the 43rd anniversary of King's speech against the War in Viet Nam, and she feels the speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence," is still relevant today. She said, it was "given to an assemblage of Clergy and Laity Concerned About The War being held at Riverside Church in New York City precisely one year before he was killed."

Children Recite Behind the Color Blind by Nordette Adams

Last year someone sent me a video of a little boy reciting a poem I wrote years ago called "Remembering a Life," which was written in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., and that made me feel good. Today my Google Alert sent me a news story that says a child read another of my poems "Behind the Color Blind" at a Martin Luther King, Jr. event in Wilkes County, North Carolina.

The same "color blind" poem was used in 2008 as well at an anti-racism event at the University of Kentucky and at a school program in Canada. Furthermore, I've seen it used in papers and posted at other websites.

I remember the first time I learned someone had selected one of my poems to read at an event, I was happily surprised. A student at Oregon State read one of them where students were reading other poems by "influential" black women such as Nikki Giovanni. I still don't know which of my poems the student read, but certainly I was humbled to be included with Ms. Giovanni, but I feel it may have been either "Color" or "You Know Why He Beat You" because those poems were getting lots of web hits back in 2006.

Every now and then I check the web to see what poems have gone beyond me. When people recite my poetry, I'm reminded of my mother who made me memorize poems to recite at events while I was growing up. For a while I recited James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation" at multiple events, including the state conference for the United Methodist Church. It was the first time I spoke to a large group of mostly white people. I had spoken to smaller integrated groups before that in school and larger all black groups. I think I recall the racial make-up of these groups because during the 70s in the South, blacks and whites were still getting used to meeting each other in integrated groups. I wonder what my mother would say about this poetry news today.

Martin Luther King Day Must Be Day of Service Not Sales

In email I received a notice from HP computers letting me know about its Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Sale. Not interested. I prefer the push to celebrate the slain Civil Rights Activist's birthday with service to communities, not buying up Wal-Mart.

On January, 18, 2010, people of all ages and backgrounds will come together to improve lives, bridge social barriers, and move our nation closer to the “Beloved Community” that Dr. King envisioned. Dr. Martin Luther King devoted his life’s work to causes of equality and social justice. He taught that through nonviolence and service to one another, problems such as hunger and homelessness, prejudice and discrimination can be overcome. Dr. King’s teachings can continue to guide us in addressing our nation’s most pressing needs---poverty, economic insecurity, job loss and education.

Volunteer with Americans across the nation on the 2010 King Day of Service and make a real difference in your community. (Read more here.)

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, as part of the day of service, some people will make an effort to help Haiti, the "western world's first black republic."

As for me, around this time each year, as I've said before, I see hits surge at the Martin Luther King, Jr., page I created more than five years ago. Most people raid it for his pictures, but some are looking for my poem, which includes the following verses:

Shall we walk again and remember him,
not as the Madison Aveners do,
but in solitude and hope
with acts of courage and compassion,
with lives of greater scope
carving fresh paths of righteousness?
(from the poem "Remembering a Life" by Nordette Adams)

In addition, I've been pleased to see that poem, "Remembering a Life", used for special King events January through August each year such as this one in Roanoke, Va., on the 40th anniversary of his death.

No, he was not Jesus or even a saint, but I don't entertain people who think we shouldn't remember him at all. King's work changed the course of this nation. Some say he changed the world.

A Short Music Playlist for Spiritual Exhales

I just added this playlist to the "Remembering a A Life" Martin Luther King poem page because the code for James Taylor's Shed A Little Light by itself wasn't working. Perhaps someone will listen and relax his or her mind for a while. I hope the record companies lets them stay up. They're old classics. Well, maybe not the Eric Benet song, but it's still old. And of course, I strongly urge you that if you like the music, you buy it, put money in the artists' pockets, and add it to your MP3 player.

I've also added a YouTube embed below this playlist of Donny Hathaway's "Some Day We'll All Be Free" so you can hear the contrast between Hathaway's version and Raymond Myles's version. Both singers are now deceased, Hathaway suffered from depression and committed suicide, and Myles was murdered on the streets of New Orleans. The people who move us with comforting words don't always get to live in comfort.

Create a MySpace Playlist at MixPod.com

Combing My Archives for Martin Luther King Posts

This piece was originally published January 2007 at my Confessions of a Jersey Goddess blog, which I shut down in 2007 when I moved back to Louisiana. I see more people hitting my poem about Martin Luther King, "Remembering a Life" and King.WrigingJunkie.net as we near hii birthday celebration. Consequently, looking at old links, I realized some of them were dead ends. This is an attempt to restore one of those.

Celebrating the Drum Major for Justice and Peace as We March Further into War

So, it's a longer blog post than normal. Sometimes you have to go long to catch the ball and make the goal.

Here I am, for the fourth consecutive year, inviting people to visit my Martin Luther King, Jr., tribute page at king.writingjunkie.net. Each year, before I post the invitation, I observe a sharp spike in visits to the page, which gets steady hits all year round, mostly from public schools around the country. In addition, I observe at my AuthorsDen site about ten times more hits to the MLK tribute poem I wrote in 2004 for my children, "Remembering a Life," as well as clicks to print the poem. I suppose those who print the poem are preparing for the King celebrations around the world. If they are reciting my poem, then I consider that an honor.

This year, reflecting on King, I have posted over at my AuthorsDen bio page the inscription from the plaque outside the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tenn., the site of Dr. King's assassination: "They said to one another, 'Behold, here cometh the dreamer. Let us slay him, And we shall see what will become of his dreams'" ~~Genesis 37: 19-20, and with it this song, "Some Day We'll All Be Free" as performed by the late Raymond Myles:

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Photo of Dr. King with picture of Mahatma Ghandi in background

Last year I focused on the message of Dr. King in light of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. And this year, my thoughts are still on Katrina fall-out, but I add the war in Iraq to which more troops were sent yesterday despite the objections of many American citizens. Whether we send troops or not, Iraq remains a hell hole of violence and humanity's cruelty to humanity. Is there anything new about humanity's cruelty except that we find more techologically advanced methods to accomplish the same deadly deeds?

Even Raymond Myles, who sings beautifully "Some Day We'll All Be Free," a song that laments the fast pace and insanity of this world, was murdered, shot to death. And where and when was he shot to death? Raymond, a former classmate of mine, was shot dead on the streets of New Orleans, La., October 1998. Today, New Orleans and surrounding parishes continue to reel in violent crime seemingly intesified by Katrina. Some of this violence is due to career criminals' turf wars. Territorial lines blurred following the flood. And some violence may be attributed undoubtedly to regular people buckling under the burden of what could probably be called Katrina Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Can We Make Something New and Good
Under the Sun?

I'm sure we could give a name to the pathology following Hurricane Katrina, but must we? Is it really new? As assuredly as we read it in the book of Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun." Suffering and how humans cause suffering and respond to suffering--some by harming themselves, some by harming others, and some by becoming apathetic, doing nothing--is not new.

But neither is it new that some humans respond to suffering by committing themselves to extraordinarily productive lives in the name of love, justice, and peace. We have within us enormous capacity to do good, yet the earth remains "filled with violence."

Reflecting on my hometown, New Orleans, and the war in Iraq, I think of Genesis 6:13 which says that God brought Noah's flood upon the earth to destroy man because the earth was filled with violence done by man. But unlike a doomsday preacher who would launch into a sermon about our coming destruction at the hand of God, I ask "Must any god destroy us?" Clearly, we will destroy ourselves if we don't change the pattern of our thoughts and deeds.

I remember the supporters of Sheriff Jack Strain last summer preaching at me that I seemed unconcerned about the poor child traumatized after the brutal slayings in Slidell and only concerned about the racist speech of the sheriff. As I said then, murder and mayhem in the New Orleans metropolitan area, while tragic, wasn't new. For that matter, white leaders being racist wasn't new either. But at some point shouldn't we learn from our mistakes? Jack Strain wanted to revert to segregationist rhetoric instead of doing his job and finding the criminals.

What was even more disheartening was that his supporters refused to acknowledge that the sheriff's rhetoric was not helpful and would probably lead to more violence if left unchallenged. They wanted to let him hide behind his racist rhetoric and claim that in demeaning black people and the poor as a group, he was talking about criminals and thus doing his job.

But the sheriff was not doing his job, one of which is to maintain peace. He was trying to place blame on the many of a particular group for the deeds of a few supposedly from that group (at the time of his statements he did not have proof the killers were from New Orleans). The sheriff garnered applause from his community for a dangerous practice that if left unchecked leads to injustice and possibly genocide, and this thought brings me back to the war on Iraq.

I concede that it's possible Saddam Hussein's regime needed to be toppled, but I abhor the present administration's ideology that the end justifies the means. The Bush administration led war supporters down a path to destruction with propaganda, basically blaming the many of one group for the deeds of a few. In the Iraq war case, we were inundated with propaganda about terrorists. Leaders triggered the emotional land mines of 911 and whenever possible equated terrorists with all Arabs. They tossed in talk of weapons of mass destruction, singled out a good villain, Sadam, and off the self-righteous, the nationalistic, the unhealed, and the easily-led went, whipped into terrified frenzy, a lynch mob, unwilling to question leaders and turning on fellow Americans who did question leaders.

It's easy to fall in with the mob. Like wolves, humans tend to follow the pack, but unlike wolves we follow the pack even to the destruction of our own species, and let's face it, democracy is about the voice of the pack. When the pack takes the high road, it's a beautiful thing, but when the pack sinks to man's baser instincts ...

It takes guts to look for solutions against our natural tendency to follow the pack down the path of violence. But how much would change for the better if more of us bucked the old pack and stood firm in nonviolence. If the pack had a mentality of nonviolence, would Bush have gotten the initial support he seemed to have? If we stood for nonviolence, would something good and new finally come under the sun?

With this thought I'm back to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., our celebration of his birth and life this January 15. Dr. King, as a Baptist minister and the son of a Baptist minister, drew many of his philosophies of love and peace from biblical teachings, specifically the teachings of Jesus Christ. While some critics of Christianity focus on atrocities committed in its name, the fair-minded person will not deny the good also done in its name. Nevertheless, King also drew empowerment for his nonviolence strategies from the teachings and practices of Mahatma Ghandi, another spiritual man, a Hindu, who dedicated his life to positive change. Key phrase here: positive change.

Those Who Detract and Distract

King was not perfect. I'm aware that when people want to detract from his life's work, they bring up his sex life, that he was not faithful to his wife and was a womanizer. True, but considering the craziness of his world and our world today, are do people honestly think his sex life should be our focus? I said people who want to detract from his life's work discuss his sex life, but what would be more accurate is that it's people who want to distract us from King's life's work who do this.

I pose one question to people who would rather detract and distract: Would the world be a better place if we each concentrated on nonviolence, peace and justice, of seeking solutions to getting along with our fellow humans rather than finding ways to blame "those other people" for all troubles and to find fault with people's personal lives when we don't want to face the truth of our own shortcomings? Peace and justice were the work of Dr. King's life. What if that were the work of our lives?

The Drum Major Instinct and Individual Responsibility

Following is an excerpt from the transcript of one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermons, "The Drum Major Instinct," which is hosted at Stanford University. Dr. King delivered the sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga., February 4, 1968. He ends this sermon speaking of what he wants people to remember about him and it's not his credentials. Quoting the old hymn "If I Can Help Somebody," King draws the focus away from changing the world globally to changing the world individually, the work any one person can do to make the world better: "If I can help somebody as I pass along ... then my living will not be in vain." If we would each adopt this thought in practice daily and would teach our children to do the same as we follow the golden rule of "Do unto others as we would have them do unto us," then would the world be better? If we would each be drum major for peace and justice in our own communities, seek the best for each other, would our communities self-destruct or renew?

Here are the words of Dr. King. The "amens" and "yesses" in parentheses are from the listening congregation:

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning. If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes) I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes) I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen) I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes) And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes) I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord) I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes) Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that's all I want to say. If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, If I can spread the message as the master taught, Then my living will not be in vain. Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world. ... Click here for the full sermon at Stanford University

Former Klansman is Sorry for Beating Black Freedom Rider Lewis

Former Klansmen (ex-KKK member) Elwin Wilson apologized to Georgia Congressman and well-known Civil Rights leader John Lewis for being one of the men who beat him at a South Carolina bus station in 1961:

Wilson, a young, white, Southern man, attacked Lewis, a freedom rider for Martin Luther King, in the "white" waiting room of a South Carolina bus station.

The men had not seen each other again until Tuesday when, with "Good Morning America's" help, Wilson approached Lewis again -- this time offering an apology and a chance to relieve a burden he'd carried for more than four decades.

"I'm so sorry about what happened back then," Wilson said breathlessly.

"It's OK. I forgive you," Lewis responded before a long-awaited hug. (ABC News)

Lewis took flack during the presidential campaign last year when he compared Republican presidential candidate John McCain to legendary racist George Wallace (who claimed to repent later). He ended up apologizing to McCain so then candidate Barack Obama wouldn't take the heat during a period when rhetoric steamed with racially divisiveness.

Here's video from CNN's Don Lemon who interviewed both men earlier this evening. According to the story, Wilson has wanted to apologize to Lewis for a very long time, and sought forgiveness from his town and the whole world.

Wilson said he's gotten some hateful phone calls since he apologized, one from a Rutgers University student who said Wilson was scum for going back on his oath to the KKK.

Read more details on the background of this story at HeraldOnline.com.

Andrew Young Endorses Obama, Explains His Silence and Earlier Clinton Support

Ambassador Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s aides, sat down with CNN journalist T. J. Holmes this Sunday morning and admitted he's already voted for Barack Obama and formally endorses him for President of the United States. Young, who at first supported Hillary Clinton, suggested that Obama isn't burdened by the scars of coming of age black in America during the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and so, he can unify people. He believes that Obama's cultural make-up, intelligence, and eloquence make him well-suited to lead and inspire the nation.

In the beginning of the interview, Young explained why he had been reluctant to state his support for Obama sooner:

"I have a lot of controversy in my background and I didn't want him to have to carry or answer to it, and I never know when something's going to come up when I want to say something that he shouldn't be caught saying." (Andrew Young on CNN's Sunday Morning)

He also mentioned another conversation he had with Holmes in Tanzania in which he told the journalist that he wasn't sure America was ready for a black president. He seems to have changed his mind partially because of the economic crisis and how Obama's handled his campaign.

"I was born with Franklin Roosevelt and not since the Great Depression have we had the threat to the economy that we have now," Young said. Later he echoed Colin Powell, calling Obama a "transformational figure."

You can watch the CNN video below and a partial interview transcript.


Young is an icon of the Civil Rights Movement who also helped draft the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As mentioned in the interview, he is a former mayor of Atlanta, Ga., who served 1981-1989. In 1977 then United States President Jimmy Carter appointed Young American Ambassador to the United Nations. Here is some of what he said during his interview with Holmes.

Young: Back when I was supporting HIllary Clinton, I sent Barack Obama a copy of Jonathan Alter's book on Frank Roosevelt's first 100 days and I said, 'You know, you might win. You better read this.'

Holmes: Well, what changed for you? You were supporting Hillary Clinton and you said he didn't have the experience and you said ...

Young: "No, no. I never said that.

Holmes: You said he was too young.

Young: No, I never said that.

Holmes: (smiling and nearly chuckling) You said he was too young.

Young: I said I had known Hillary Clinton since she was a college girl and I had only met him once. And the only reason I would be voting for him at that point ... is because he was a wonderful, eloquent speaker. But when I read his book I realized that this young man has a kind of cultural DNA that I think the world needs.

Now I figured it would be another eight years or so before the economy fell apart. We've been on a bubble for a long time, but it happened earlier. If I were making my choice as to vote for in August of this year before the convention, it was very clear that we need the kind of idealism and enthusiasm that Barack Obama's election would bring to the global economy.

Now, let me say that I'm not blowing smoke here. Atlanta was kind of in a rut in 1980 an '81 and my election turned around this economy and it wasn't that I did anything except go around the world and invite people to work with us. But we brought in $70 billion of foreign-direct investment in Atlanta. Eleven hundred companies moved their businesses here, and we created a million jobs.

Holmes: So, before he does anything, just the image of just him being elected ...

Young: No, what it is is it's a belief in America. It says, 'Well, I'll be darned. They really do practice what they preach.

Holmes: Okay, last thing here. ... Well, I know we're going to have to let you go, but one thing, there was so much talk before, and we haven't heard this lately, about Obama not being black enough. He's not from the same ... (Young looks about to object and Holmes gestures toward him for some leeway) ... No. Stay with me here ...

Young: But as good.

Holmes: Okay, as good. So you say that's a good thing, but ...

Young: As wonderful!

Holmes: ... but so many of the Civil Rights era, I mean, he didn't come up in that era, if you will, so ...

Young: And that's good. And that's a blessing, and I realize that I have a hard time believing and trusting because I have so many battle scars and so many wounds from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s (chuckles slightly). He grew up free of that so we're not so much electing a black man as we are electing one of the brightest and best organized and disciplined young men, and I don't relate his election to Martin Luther King as much as I do to John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt because he's a transformational figure. And we didn't make much fuss about Kennedy being Irish. We didn't even know what Roosevelt was, Dutch maybe. But the fact is that he was the man of the hour, the man that the world needed at that time. (partial transcript of the CNN Young/Holmes interview)

Holmes did his homework for the interview. I recall the debate over Obama's blackness, that he didn't come up through the Civil Rights struggle and was not the descendants of slaves. The journalist was wise to get Young, the Civil Rights warrior, to address Obama's blackness again, but I think Young's "as good" description may be misinterpreted by some.

And it's no wonder that Holmes seemed a little confused by Young saying he never said Obama didn't have enough experience. From some of Young's previous commentary about Obama, you could get the impression he did think lack of experience was a reason not to get behind Obama. The ambassador said during another interview available at NewsMakers that he wanted Obama to be president but not until the year 2016. However, he did insist back then that he wasn't talking about experience:

"It is not a matter of being inexperienced," Young told an Atlanta crowd this fall. "It is a matter of being young. There is a certain matter of maturity ... You have to have a protective network around you... Leadership requires suffering. And I would like to see Barack's children get a little older, see, because they're going to pick on them." (Young at Redding Review, Dec. 2007)

So, the issue was Obama's youth, but the ambassador also suggested the Illinois senator was rushing to the head of the class too soon and needed more maturity. In addition, he appeared to fear during the NewMakers video (it's from the same event reported through the Redding Review) that the presidency would be too hard on Barack and his family. He talked about the trials Martin Luther King, Jr., faced. Perhaps he didn't want to see another African-American live that heartache.

However, Young also joked back then that Bill Clinton probably had "been with more black women" than Obama and was as black, mabye blacker, than Obama. Quite a few bloggers objected to his joke. Uppity Negro, for instance, had a lot to say about Young's commentary.

Considering Young's earlier commentary on Barack running for the White House, I think his opening statements during his Holmes interview were on point. Barack Obama didn't need him going around speaking on his behalf if he was going to make distasteful jokes, if Young wanted to speak his mind and not be a distraction. That said, it's good to see Young speak more intelligently today about Obama and clarify any reticence, and he reveals his own introspection as he compares the life he's led under racial oppression in past America to the lives we all may live better today.

Update, dark cloud with some silver lining: Reflecting on Andrew Young's fears of the trials the Obamas will face, I inform you that CNN reports Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing racial misgivings in these final days, resurrecting the Rev. Wright controversy, and I can tell you that similar ads have run here in Louisiana by the GOP Trust PAC. I recommend Prof. Kim's post on Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Black Church if anyone wants a deeper understanding, and I have a post on other attacks here. It does not include last week's thwarted skinhead plot. If that's all too depressing, look on the sunny side. BlogHer's updated with Maria Niles' bold prediction about white America or you can watch this uplifting video that reminds us "You can vote however you like" or watch McCain on SNL raising campaign funds with QVC or listen to the Palin Prank. I'm determined to have a good day.

Lessons Learned from Palin and Giuliani's RNC Speeches Tonight through a Black Woman's Eyes

I listened to Rudy Giuliani tonight and realized that Republicans believe that the only service to country is through war, that working for social justice as a community organizer and fighting for people's right to vote or fairness for families whose breadwinners have been laid off, or standing up to banks that take people's homes after suckering them into loan-shark mortgages is not worthy to be categorized as service to country.

I saw that Republicans do not applaud people who fight for social justice but instead ridicule them. (Did you see/hear them laugh when Giuliani said Obama had been a community organizer? He pretty much belittled everything Obama's ever done.). If you don't understand what it means to be a community organizer, then please consider that the greatest movements in the world have begun with community organizing. You can not be a good community organizer without also being a good leader, a good strategist, and a warrior.

The Civil Rights Movement was essentially begun and sustained through community organizing. So, while I commend John McCain for his wartime service, I submit that there are others who've fought for me and they did that through community organizing and standing up for justice. Of course, since John McCain at one time thought little of Martin Luther King, Jr., I can understand how McCain and his supporters would laugh at and belittle community organizers.

Consequently, it is true, I surmised after listening to both Giuliani and Sarah Palin tonight, that to be a Republican is to care for no one but people who have made it already and not for people who struggle financially or who are so poor they don't have the boots with the straps needed to pull themselves up. To be a Republican, I learned, is to distort facts, which is why they have such a love affair with Fox News, I guess . Republicans, I discovered after listening to Rudy Giuliani, don't really believe in "justice for all" but that "might makes right" and "every man/woman for him/herself."

They reminded me of Nazis. I know that sounds harsh, and people will dismiss my instincts on this comparison because it sounds over-the-top. But every time they started chanting anything, with their stiff hairdos and monolithic group appearance, I could only think of Nazi Germany rising, possibly decent people being led to commit horrors because someone pushes the right emotional buttons, nationalistic and religious buttons, in a warped view of what it means to be patriotic. (If anyone's interested, I've voted for a Republican before so I'm not a die-hard Dem.)

This country is in real danger. We have a Republican nominee for the presidency who jokes about bombing Iran, and a Republican VP nominee who frames the war against Iraq in terms of being a God-ordained war. Is it possible Palin thinks the war in Iraq is a "holy war"? If so, in ideology, she's no different from the Muslims who believe God calls them to kill people in the name of Allah.

Whenever people in a Democracy rise up and start saying it's good to do violence in the name of God or that their country, specifically, is called by God, you know we're in trouble. First they target those people over there, and then they target the folks at home who question the validity of that so-called "calling." (I consider myself a Christian, btw, but I do not believe in Dominion Theology, which is sort of the thinking you get when folks start declaring wars in the name of God. I suspect that Palin is a proponent of Dominion Theology, however. Dominion theologists do not believe in separation of church and state for America.) The more I read about Palin, the more I think she's wrong for American democracy. I mean, this is a woman who believes in banning books.

Did you get Palin's "always proud of America" swipe at Michelle Obama tonight? This whole thing that you can't find fault in the country and yet still fiercely love it disturbs me. And really, how can any so-called Christian claim that this is what love's about? To truly love is to see faults and love in spite of faults. And to live by truth is to not live in denial of errors. Can you improve yourself or a system if you won't admit there are moments of fault, that there are times that we should not be proud of our behavior? This belief that America can never be wrong and it's unpatriotic to admit America has faults is tied to the belief that America is God's chosen nation, to question country is to question God.

I love God too, and I know there are liberals who think anyone who believes in God is stupid. That's their problem not mine. Nevertheless, I say God was pimped out tonight by Republicans not glorified.

What I really loved during Palin's speech is her brining up the character issue. She said John McCain says the same thing about others when they're listening as well as when they're not listening, unlike Obama, she suggested, who expressed that some white working class people cling bitterly to guns and religion. I guess Palin doesn't know or doesn't care about McCain's character issue when it comes to what McCain had to say to a woman even while reporters were listening. (Oh, wait. He didn't insult all women, just his wife.) Perhaps McCain calling Cindy McCain a "c*nt" is just fine with Palin. After all, Palin she laughs when men belittle women.

And what's with all this getting weepy about special needs children? Isn't this the party whose current president vetoed SCHIP? That's not important though, right? Palin's special needs child has health care coverage.

I believe the Republicans are hypocrites who denounce Affirmative Action, for instance, but to win an election just did the "mack daddy" of Affirmative Action mambos, hustling tokenism galore. They did the worst form of it too, pushing an unqualified person to the front of the line for display purposes only. Palin's nomination is not about balance, it's about playing to the emotions of women who mourn Hillary's campaign and the religious right that's lukewarm on McCain.

In addition, Republicans idolize a misogynistic candidate yet call others sexist who ask legitimate questions about Palin's record and credentials. If you suggest Palin's a puppet, mouthing a speech that was posted in advance, then of course you only think that because she's a woman, right? As though men have never been accused of being pawns and puppets. Republicans are attempting to label people who don't like Palin as sexist, while they refer to this VP nominee as "cute" and "hot."

Yes, I've got issues with Palin, but I guarantee you my concerns about her being on the ticket have nothing to do with either her womanhood or motherhood or her daughter's pregnancy. I've got issues because the entire nomination smacks of hypocrisy and she's carrying enough baggage (Trooper Gate and more) to be the sister line of a slow train to Arkansas.

Nevertheless, I'll give the Republicans props. They know how to spin a message and how to manipulate the part of the masses susceptible to nationalism. They are masters of flipping the script, too, while pulling emotional strings. Have you noticed that Palin, a strong woman in the eyes of Republicans, is not a bitch but another "b" word, barracuda (and, yes, I know the name comes from her basketball years)? This ability to flip scripts, appear to embrace what they actually demean, this knack of redefining people and concepts--such as redefining Affirmative Action as "Reverse Discrimination"--or claiming that they're pro-higher education while painting a well-educated, Harvard law grad who's from a working class family as an "elitist" is both a skill and a talent. This ability is also an effective weapon in mobilizing people who are driven by emotion and are weak in critical thinking.

I have observed that like most religious fascists, Republicans tend to glorify conformity, quash dissent, and pummel or avoid people who question their decisions and agenda, as we can see by McCain canceling his interview with CNN. America, take a long look at these people. If we elect the Republican ticket this time around, get ready for a very bumpy ride. In the past Republicans have won by pushing fear, and now deftly push Americans, like Disney's lemmings, toward a fascist nightmare.

PS: Campbell Brown seemed to go overboard tonight praising Palin. I guess McCain and CNN management have her running scared.

Tags: [politics], [John McCain], [Sarah Palin]