The article can be found online here.
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Admittedly, it must be hard to write content on a regular basis, but the quality required of our Washington's Press Corps is depressing. Imagine for a minute that an editor chose to include this column by Mary Sanchez of the Washington Post Writers Group in the Arizona Republic on Janurary 14th:
"If you roll your eyes through the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and are bracing for the onslaught of Black History Month, I feel your pain."
OMIGOD, BRACE YOURSELF FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND THE ONSLAUGHT OF OCCASIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMERCIALS, NEWS STORIES, AND HISTORY CHANNEL SPECIALS!
To all the people made uncomfortable by the exploration of a centuries of slavery, another century of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and their lingering affect on our lives today: you have a friend in Mary Sanchez and the Washington Post--they "feel your pain." Mary Sanchez is quick to assure us that she "admires" King, of course she can only do so in an incredibly condescending notion that
"Sorry, you have not met the King I admire. I realize this may tick people off. They don't like their MLK radicalized."
Yes, Mary Sanchez, you are the only person on Earth who knows that King was a little more radical than our McDonald's tray-liners might imply. Except if you, um, actually watch those History Channel specials that are apparently incredibly painful to you and your cohorts.
How much does Sanchez "admire" King? Enough to cherry-pick a sentence from his "I have a Dream" speech in order to comfort those who feel afflicted by MLK day.
[SANCHEZ:] If you view a speech about 'dreaming of a day when little Black boys and girls are holding hands' as an idea that is long realized, I can see your point".
I don't know about you, but I don't search for a sentence out of a lengthy speech of someone I "admire" in an attempt to justify King's apparent irrelevancy to those who roll their eyes on MLK day. Sanchez's column is mind-boggling vacant of insight or context, it's quicker to just quote King then offer an inane sentence or two showing how desperate you are to pander to those in power (all in the name of "admiring" a "radical").
Sanchez is quick to assure us "that class, not race is the biggest divider in the United States." Well thanks Sanchez, I'm so glad that King's Dream has been realized because you say so! Does she cite statistics or an academic study to support her assertion? Of course not, that might require the effort of a Google search! Well I took the trouble to support my point (it's not that hard) and found that according to a study by a Princeton and University of Washington Professors found on page 7 that from 1995-99 23.7 percent of black men aged 22-64 were categorized as "Nonworkers" and 7.2 percent "Inmates" compared to 13.7 "Nonworkers" and .9 percent "Inmates" for whites. It apparently doesn't occur to Sanchez that a disproportionate amount of blacks might be found among the "at-risk" classes with more frequent employment and legal troubles. She continues her thoughtless assurances that King's message pertaining to racial equality is irrelevant to insist that "talking harmony is the safest way to present King." Thank goodness we have pundits like Sanchez to guide us to the "safest" way to interpret King so that we don't have to be bothered contemplating the lingering effects of segregation and slavery: that might require researching a very complex problem and provoke uncomfortable discussion--we wouldn't want to disturb those that "are grateful [Black History Month] February is a short month."
Half of Sanchez's column is simply a laundry list of King's quotes from one chapter of his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Let's dig into this gem:
[Quoting King]"'When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.' Think Iran and North Korea."
Again, Sanchez is taking King's once radical words because of who they were directed at, then projects her pandering, non-controversial, interpretations onto them. 'Unradicalizing' King's work is the very thing Sanchez is accusing the MLK holiday of doing when she should look in the mirror. Does it not dawn on her that the United States involvement in Vietnam is what inspired King's statement (or it's obvious parallel with our current involvement in Iraq)? According to Sanchez it's the celebration of MLK day and not columns like her own that distort King's broad-ranging "radical" social criticisms. King was labeled a "radical" (and probably assassinated) because he was willing to openly question America's own faults: racism and needless foreign aggression...not run from those questions in search of "harmony" and "safety" as Sanchez seems eager to do.
Sanchez "admires" King enough to close with this:
[Quoting King]"'And if we are not diligent in our determination to root out the last vestiges of racism in our dealing with the rest of the world, we may soon see the sins of our fathers visited upon ours and succeeding generations.' That's a message worth repeating more than just one day, each January."
I agree it's a message worth revisiting, but I won't hold my breath until Sanchez remembers to write about King's message again because that would mean suffocating until that one day next January (not to mention she gets the message all wrong).
Think about it: Imagine you're a Junior in high school again and your American History teacher asked you to write a two page opinion paper on Martin Luther King Jr. and you turned in Sanchez's column. Assuming that your teacher wasn't offended by your attempt to pander to those who are "bracing for the onslaught of Black History Month" what do you think your grade would be? An 'A'? No way. A 'B'? Maybe. A 'C' seems most appropriate to me for the following reasons:
- She relies solely on one chapter from one source--despite some very controversial assertions
- Think condescending tone
- And a laundry list of quotes without substantive analysis or context
But apparently the standards of a quality high school history paper are too high for our current paid pundit class and their hapless editors.
(cross posted)