For Martin Luther King Day: on supremacies and equality
[Today is Martin Luther King Day, and this is a repeat of a previous post. The first link in the speech, to the text of MLK’s 1960 DePauw speech, unfotunately isn’t working anymore.]
From a speech Reverend Martin Luther King delivered at DePauw University in September of 1960:
Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers, and all men will respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.
It’s enough to make you weep, if you think of the fact that such a statement would now be highly controversial and unlikely to find a home on any college campus.
It would probably be problematic on three fronts at least. The first is its use of the phrase “black supremacy” as similar to “white supremacy,” when we all know that according to the Gospel of Marx they are totally different in every way because of the power differentials. The second is the idea that white lives matter too, and that we are one human race who are brothers (actually, come to think of it, MLK’s use of the term “brothers” and “men” to mean “humanity” would probably be a huge no-no as well). The third is his assertion that God is a large part of the reason that all people are one and all need to be respected.
You know what I mean: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Note, also, that the words say “the pursuit of happiness” – that is, the opportunity to seek it, not the right to have it. All people are not going to be happy, and they are not going to be equal in their life conditions. But they are created equal, and given liberty to, among other things, pursue happiness.
It is no accident that King was a minister. The black community has long been an especially religious one (statistics for 2014 can be found here; I’m not sure what’s been happening in the ensuing years). Also, the underpinnings and strength of the idea of equality has inherent religious dimensions. Without religion, it’s certainly possible to believe the same thing – or at least pay lip service to it. But for many people, leftism has become their religion and leftism says that people must be regarded as different and judged by different standards, according to a hierarchy of victimhood, class, race, and gender that the left sets up.
Also, some religions have been taken over by leftism. One only has to look at Barack Obama’s own church in Chicago, which was headed by another Reverend, Jeremiah Wright, to see what I mean.
Speaking of Obama, remember this sort of thing? It’s a fascinating segment of a speech, because Obama is stating the application of the Declaration to all in the US and quoting the document, but cites the doctrine of equality while leaving out the Creator as the one doing the “endowing.” It’s a significant omission, I believe, and no accident:
Certainly, a person can believe in these truths without believing in God. Also, there are churches and other religious groups that have embraced leftism and its racial blaming and hierarchies. But Martin Luther King’s vision loses much of its potency when its religious underpinnings are weakened. I believe that is at least part of what has happened to it in the last few decades.
Why was King addressing “black supremacy” back in 1960, when there was still not just de facto discrimination in the US but also de jure discrimination? It’s because there has long been a tension and an argument even in the black community and the civil rights community (including white people) between inclusiveness and separatism, love and rage. It’s not new. In the late 60s, not too long after that speech of King’s, it reached a fever pitch. Now the temperature of the fever is even higher.
‘Black supremacy’ is something that exists in particular neighborhoods and particular segments within workplaces. It can be injurious to people exposed to it because a critical mass of blacks have no compunction about mistreating others and segments of a metropolis where blacks predominate tend to be shot through with street crime and school disorder unless the authorities are unflinching about deploying police manpower to such areas and encouraging them to do their jobs.
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A more common issue is ‘black impunity’. A large minority of blacks have bought into the notion that they’re a sort of aristocratic stratum and it’s an outrage that low status deplorables like police officers have authority over them. They are supported in this view by white progtrash, the difference being that black chauvinists fancy their status is inherent and white progtrash are incensed that white deplorables have the audacity to impose social discipline on their pets.
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Please note the assumptions behind DEI: that ordinary whites are so disgusting next to regime pets that they are properly replaced by them, even if the process is dishonest and so doing is in conflict with the notional mission of the institution in question. Rhetorical gamesmen chuffer on about ‘making up for past discrimination’ with no acknowledgement that the hispanic population of the United States was tiny prior to 1960).
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Have a look at the racial composition of the University of California student body and then have a look at the median combined board scores of each coarse racial segment and then look at the breakdown of the young adult population by race. This isn’t a private institution swapping out (say) 5% of the white applicants who might otherwise be admitted. This is a public institution suppressing the non-hispanic white presence on the order of 40%.
Barack is very much a “Do as I say”, not a “Do as I do”. He is a symbol of how many glib suckers there are among us.
Did Martin Luther King ever actually mean any of that, or would he have just gone along with the racial spoils system like all the other civil rights figures who survived him?
Did Martin Luther King ever actually mean any of that, or would he have just gone along with the racial spoils system like all the other civil rights figures who survived him?
I’ve tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, since he seemed more focused than others on concepts like colorblindness. But he apparently favored reparations and affirmative action, so unfortunately it seems likely he would have gone in the same direction as the rest of them.
No doubt MLK was a flawed human being.
But he knew, correctly, he was risking his life. As he said the day before he was assassinated.
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I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.
–Martin Luther King, Jr. ,”I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (April 3, 1968)
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm
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Generally people don’t risk their lives for a place at the head of the line for spoils.
God bless Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Supremes were just that, though Diana Ross was more equal than the others.
@huxley:Generally people don’t risk their lives for a place at the head of the line for spoils.
The others risked their lives too, didn’t lose them, and when things settled down and there was a racial spoils system, made sure they got theirs.
I’m in agreement with huxley. His personal faults aside, I think MLK Jr. believed what he said about equality. We’ve had enough in the past decade or so of people denying there was anything good about the leaders of the American Revolution because they weren’t perfect in the eyes of the twenty-first century or in their own times. Let their achievements stand.
Again, Bayard Rustin was (AFAIK) the only person in King’s circle who objected to the race patronage regime which appeared after 1968. One of King’s important collaborators was Joseph Rauh. Ed Koch tells of crossing paths with Rauh at a social function in 1971 and buttonholing him on the subject of race patronage (which Koch opposed). Koch’s description of Rauh’s response is amusing. “He was positively Churchillian. ‘We will fight you in the streets. We will fight you in the cities…'”. The most malignant court decision, Griggs v. Duke Power was issued that year. The Nixon Administration’s ‘Philadelphia Plan’ was instituted that year. The University of California’s medical school quotas were instituted in 1969. Interesting to rummage through his correspondence to figure out when a permanent race patronage regime (administered by lawyers in defiance of public opinion) was concocted.
I think MLK Jr. believed what he said about equality.
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I think he believed what he said about blacks being treated in a manner which injured their pride. The trouble is, all but a few of us are humiliated at some point in our lives. You can remove certain repulsive contrivances – and there were many in 1953. People still are told the position has been filled, they cannot have a loan, they failed the examination, and leaving the scene of an accident is a crime. Failure to distinguish between different sorts of injuries gets you the race patronage regime.
There’s a difference between risking your life and believing you were risking your life.
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The $PLC has a list of about forty people they classify as having been the subject of political murder during the period running from 1955 to 1968. (You can add another half dozen or so from the period running from 1968 to 1981). If you read about individual cases, you can see the list is padded. It was not that common.
MLK was the most prominent civil rights leader of the movement and arguably had the biggest target on his back. He spoke beautifully and eloquently straight down the line of the Declaration of Independence and the Bible in a unifying way.
He was a rare inspiring figure in a dangerous time. He left America and the world a better place.
Those who wish to knock him down are welcome to try. He received worse in his time and he is still standing.
To point out facts about MLK (that he favored reparations and affirmative action) is not to “knock him down” or to deny his courage, eloquence, or his many great accomplishments. Among other things, he held true to his belief in non-violent protest. He was a towering, inspirational figure. But nearly 60 years after his murder we can be honest about him, as we are about Lincoln, Washington, and other great figures of American history.
You’re not going to believe this but I found a great editorial in the WSJ.
Black America Needs a Moral Rejuvenation
By Robert Woodson
https://archive.fo/2026.01.16-003334/https://www.wsj.com/opinion/black-america-needs-a-moral-rejuvenation-1af5df01
@Jimmy:But nearly 60 years after his murder we can be honest about him
I’m not sure we can. There’s a lot worse in life than hypothetically supporting what black politicians today support.
The others risked their lives too, didn’t lose them, and when things settled down and there was a racial spoils system, made sure they got theirs.
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I’m trying to think of a period ‘civil rights leader’ of note who after 1971 made his primary living working for a commercial enterprise. The only names which come to mind are Myrlie Williams and Rap Brown. I suppose you could add Vernon Jordan, but I think that man was always in the connections business.
Not interested in trashing King, though there is a boatload of dirt on the man. The thing is, by 1971 his particular skill set had ceased to be salient. Not sure he had much to offer anymore. The hagiography of the man is somewhat de trop.
The country as a whole could use a moral regeneration.
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As for the black population in particular, they would benefit from a half-dozen sets of policy changes, though not always in an unqualified way. I doubt you could find a black politician interested in any of them.
It’s ironic that 60 years after MLK’s death, judging by race is still widespread, but now whites are discriminated against instead of blacks.
The institutional bias against whites has been a reality in at least portions of the economy since 1971. Given the excuses offered, what’s amusing is that the farther we get from the world prior to 1971, the more prevalent and intense the bias gets. Again, the racial composition of the University of California is a prime example.
neo astutely observes, “Obama is stating the application of the Declaration to all in the US and quoting the document, but cites the doctrine of equality while leaving out the Creator as the one doing the “endowing.” It’s a significant omission, I believe, and no accident:”
Absolutely an intentional omission and for such as he, a necessary one. By leaving out that our inalienable rights are granted by our Creator, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are reduced to State ‘granted’ and revocable privileges. Reduced to privileges because what one majority of citizens agree are rights, a later majority can declare to be null and void.
The Declaration lays down in that most memorable of terms the moral foundations upon which the US Constitution rests. Not even the amendment process can nullify our right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for the Constitution merely provides formal recognition of preexisting rights. But this ONLY holds true if granted by a Creator. Secular rejection of a Creator removes all claim to inalienable rights with the State replacing the Creator and all is reduced to the rule of men who make the laws and decide what privileges are currently ‘approved’.
Many know this already, but …
Back around 2012 or so Newt Gingrich (historian) said that in the colonial era the “pursuit of happiness” meant (at least for the American gentry) the pursuit of virtue and wisdom. This mean both personal and public virtue, and when you believed you were achieving those aims, that made you (internally) happy that you were maintaining a solid reputation, etc.
As many people of that time also studied Greek, the Greeks also had the term “eudemonia”.
Searching to reconfirm my understanding, I find several related definitions, often relating to some ideas about “happiness”, but I believe the core idea is somewhat broader, as “the Greek term for “well-being” or “human flourishing” “.
@ Mike Plaiss > “Black America Needs a Moral Rejuvenation”
Excellent article at your link.
Sadly, there is too much money to be had in NOT doing what Mr. Woodson advises, and his counsel is absolutely correct.
As it was when others said the same thing years ago, and since then.
There is no graft in Rejuvenating Morality.
Well, someone could probably figure out how to profiteer on even that.
Re MLK on believing in full equality versus wanting a racial spoils system, I probably would say a bit of both, with the latter supposed to give way to the former. He could be quite the piece of work in private life and was far more radical than many realize (and often in a bad way) with what I can best describe as an aspiration towards a form of Christian Socialism; though for obvious reasons he was only so open about that. I do think he sincerely believed in it too, as well as the whole “all men are brothers and children of God” thing, for whatever his many flaws and foibles. But he did believe it as crucial to implement things like affirmative action in the meantime to help erode the white supremacy in the US and help push Blacks and others onto a more equal footing, and this was one of the things he and people like Goldwater argued over, even if MLK simultaneously had problems on his other flank with more unabashed black supermarkets or separatists like Huey Newton.
And autocorrect turns black supremacistssupermarkets?
supremacists into supermarkets
Sorry, Coment correct function wasn’t cooperating. Smart phone not so smart operator.
Barack is very much a “Do as I say”, not a “Do as I do”. He is a symbol of how many glib suckers there are among us.
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Actually, he is a symbol of the availability of politically-determined incomes for the favored few and a symbol of the escalating shamelessness of our political class.
Kate @ 3:10pm,
Well stated!
@om
Oopps. Derp. But yeah, autocorrect is the enemy of humanity.