In the blistering words heard throughout the free world, one of America’s democratically elected officials asked what non-whites have ever done for white people.
Lest one be accused of misrepresenting Congressman King’s words, it is worth providing the exact quote verbatim.
“This whole ‘white people’ business though does get a little tired, Charlie. I mean, I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you’re talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
In other words, a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives went on national television, and said point blank that white people are superior to everyone else.
King made this statement while participating in a panel discussion on MSNBC. Almost immediately, chaos ensued. The program then went to break, and no one did much to have a debate with the congressman. After all, there are no winners when a debate begins with that kind of ignorance.
But, how is a free-thinking American citizen supposed to approach this kind of statement in 2016? Is King’s statement the problem with America, or is it a symptom of wider problems in American politics?
To begin, it is not hard for anyone who has ever read a book to begin to list the foundational contributions given to modern society by people from almost every race but white people.
The Phoenicians created the foundations of an alphabet that is still in use today. Egyptians made paper. They also made ink to use on the paper. Omar Khayyam and Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi invented the foundations of algebra. Further contributions to mathematics came from Indians, who, to King’s likely surprise, were also multi-talented, and contributed immensely to farming technology.
These are just a handful of the contributions made a few thousand years ago. It does not even begin to cover the innumerous inventions, such as keyless ignitions in cars, and ideas created by people of all races since then.
But, that is not the point. The point is that American politics reached a point in the last decade where it was acceptable to have clearly never opened a book. It is fine that King never checked a fact. In fact, no one minds that he has failed to consider the fundamentals of logic. Moreover, it is acceptable to flout these things in the name of being a conservative, or worse, in the name of being an American.
But, the real problem is not that King continues to serve as a leader who is not just overtly racist but also entirely unapologetic. It is also not that he does not seem to have the critical thinking skills required to let little things like ‘fact’ and ‘logic’ bother him.
Rather, it is the fact that his fellow party members and fellow patriots continue to allow him to make important decisions for the country as long as he toes the line. They do so because he exists in a system that is less concerned with truth than it is with grabbing as much power as possible at any cost.
So yes, it is true that King is a bizarre choice for representation in a democratic forum. After all, he is a representative from Iowa with a Confederate flag hanging in his office.
But, what is more bizarre is that his statements are not a one-off act of defiance. Instead, they are nothing but a long series of indignant and uninformed statements that continue to go unchallenged by his peers. Because even if he makes no sense, he is at least a willing participant in the power vacuum. This, and not King's attention grabbing antics, is what Americans truly need to address this election cycle.