[Kobi]

The would be kind of amusing if it wasnt so sad.

So I have to be careful what I say and how I say it, I have to be careful what I call people people of color, how dare I have the audacity to quote a famous person of color .....more people reading the Japanese internment incorrectly.....let me make this clear....it was a freakin example on prevailing thought at a time of crisis.....it was a philosophical concept of was it right or was it wrong......and on what basis would a decision be made and by whom.....I did not agree or disagree or offer any freakin opinion on it....I stated a fact and asked a freakin question....

Sorry Medusa, this is freakin sad and again I know everyone thinks it is me. But this is freakin bizarre. A white person cant quote a person of color....omg this is just nuts. But I am supposed to sit here and weed thru the crap for insight.....thank god mom is coming for a visit tomorrow.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Wax:

Thank you for this. Prooftexting is a perfect phrase and I wish I had thought to invoke it here. In the same general area is the invocation of MLK, Jr. If one more white politician says "I marched with Dr. King" when the reality is that they were alive and walking circa 1962 and since King held marches in '62 they were walking at the same time as him therefore they marched with him, I'm going to scream. Any of you who have started a pool to see if there is anything that can make me loose my cool--put your money there, it's a sure winner.

Along the same lines, is quoting the "content of our character" line. I find it somewhere on the spectrum of infuriating to hilarious that people who couldn't quote anything else King ever uttered will repeat the character line time and time again as if over the course of his life the only words the man ever spoke were those. I'm reasonably certain--based upon what my parents have told me (King died when I was a year old so the one time I got to meet him, I don't remember)--that his first words were NOT "will be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin..." Yet, a lot of very conservative people treat that phrase sort of like Rev. Wright's "God damn America" in reverse. Reverend Wright preached for some 40 years and as far as the American media would have us believe every sermon he ever gave can be written as follows:

"The lesson this morning is taken from the book of Damn America. "And then the people did speak saying unto all, God damn America! Thus endeth the lesson.

Beloved, when I woke up this morning I said God damn America. When Jesus was on the cross, God damn America. If you are struggling today, not sure how you going to make a way out of no way, God damn America. Now will the congregation rise while we sing God damn America.

Singing: "God damn America. God damn America! God damn America! God damn America."

In the same way King's *entire* career has been reduced to:

"I have a dream...judged by the content of our character." Again, to take the media's spin on his life everywhere he went he said "I have a dream...judged by the content of our character."

People who would never even think to read something as short as Letter from Birmingham Jail think nothing of quoting those lines to burnish their "see, I was there with the civil rights marchers" cred.

Aj