[kj] ot - a dream of spin and distortion

[fluwdot at earthlink.net]

from blackcommentator.com

Every year, millions of Americans pay tribute to the memory of Dr. 
Martin Luther King. We often forget, however, that King was the 
object of derision when he was alive. At key moments in his quest for 
civil rights and world peace, the corporate media treated King with 
hostility. Dr. King's march for open housing in Chicago, when the 
civil rights movement entered the North, caused a negative, you've-
gone-too-far reaction in the Northern press. And Dr. King's stand on 
peace and international law, especially his support for the self-
determination of third world peoples, caused an outcry and backlash 
in the predominantly white press.

In his prophetic anti-war speech at Riverside Church in 1967 
(recorded and filmed for posterity but rarely quoted in today's 
press) King emphasized four points: 1) that American militarism would 
destroy the war on poverty, 2) that American jingoism breeds 
violence, despair, and contempt for law within the United States, 3) 
the use of people of color to fight against people of color abroad is 
a "cruel manipulation of the poor," 4) human rights should be 
measured by one yardstick everywhere.

The Washington Post denounced King's anti-war position, and said King 
was "irresponsible." In an editorial entitled "Dr. King's error," The 
New York Times chastised King for going beyond the allotted domain of 
black leaders -- civil rights.TIME called King's anti-war stand 
"demogogic slander...a script for Radio Hanoi." The media responses 
to Dr. King's calls for peace were so venomous that King's two recent 
biographers – Stephen Oates and David Garrow – devoted whole chapters 
to the media blitz against King's internationalism.

Dr. King may be an icon within the media today, but there is still 
something upsetting about the way his birthday is observed. Four 
words – "I have a dream" – are often parroted out of context every 
January 15th.

King, however, was not a dreamer – at least not the teary-eyed, 
mystic projected in the media. True, he was a visionary, but he 
specialized in applied ethics. He even called himself "a drum major 
for justice," and his mission, as he described it, was, "to disturb 
the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." In fact, the oft-quoted 
"I have a dream" speech was not about far-off visions. In his speech 
in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963, Dr. King confronted the 
poverty, injustice, and "nightmare conditions" of American cities. In 
its totality, the "I have a dream" speech was about the right of 
oppressed and poor Americans to cash their promissory note in our 
time. It was a call to action.



In 1986, Jesse Jackson wrote an essay on how Americans can protect 
the legacy of Dr. King. Jackson's essay on the trivialization, 
distortion, the emasculation of King's memory, is one of the 
clearest, most relevant appreciations in print of Dr. King's work. 
Jackson wrote: "We must resist the media's weak and anemic memory of 
a great man. To think of Dr. King only as a dreamer is to do 
injustice to his memory and to the dream itself. Why is it that so 
many politicians today want to emphasize that King was a dreamer? Is 
it because they want us to believe that his dreams have become 
reality, and that therefore, we should celebrate rather than continue 
to fight? There is a struggle today to preserve the substance and the 
integrity of Dr. King's legacy."

Today, the media often ignores the range and breadth of King's 
teachings. His speeches – on economlc justice, on our potential to 
end poverty, on the power of organized mass action, his criticism of 
the hostile media, his opposition to U.S. imperialism (a word he 
dared to use) – are rarely quoted, much less discussed with 
understanding. In fact, successors to Dr. King who raise the same 
concerns today are again treated with sneers, and their "ulterior 
motives" are questioned. A genuine appreciation of Dr. King requires 
respect for the totality of his work and an ongoing commitment to 
struggle for peace and justice today.