January 16, 2015
"Barry Blitt drew next week’s cover, inspired by the photographs of the Selma-to-Montgomery march that are everywhere again."
"'It struck me that King’s vision was both the empowerment of African-Americans, the insistence on civil rights, but also the reconciliation of people who seemed so hard to reconcile,' he said. 'In New York and elsewhere, the tension between the police and the policed is at the center of things. Like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, Martin Luther King was taken way too early. It is hard to believe things would have got as bad as they are if he was still around today.'"
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45 comments:
Barry Blitt is a devilish man.
If you look to the right of Dr. King's face and a little higher, you will see a partial face in one of the back rows. It is Barack Obama, leading from behind.
Why can't we all just get along?
Is he saying tobacco prices and taxes would be lower if MLK were alive?
"It is hard to believe things would have got as bad as they are..."
I'll bet he can't name a date that "things" were better. He's 56. He can name a lot of dates where things were much worse.
Like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, Martin Luther King was taken way too early.
What a bizarre sentence: it's never too early for violent criminals like Martin and Brown to bite the dust.
Bob R said...
I'll bet he can't name a date that "things" were better.
As far police killings go, they're lower than ever in recent history, especially for blacks.
Yes Michael Brown was really on the cusp of doing wonderful things. All those weekends reading to the elderly, volunteering at the homeless shelter, and organizing blood drives. He had such a promising future ahead of him.
Or maybe society has room in one more future prison cell.
Sorry folks... but after nearly 30 years now of the MSM falling all over themselves to demonstrate how PC they are every year around this time, I'm MLK Day'd out on stuff like this.
Meanwhile, our pooh-poohing Hollywood elites reveal their true selves by staging a collective 'white-out' of their signature annual awards event.
I am done with the race baiters. Done. I refuse to engage or listen. If Trayvon Martin is supposed to represent oppression of blacks, there can be no discussion. The case was tried and adjudicated. Unless there is evidence new to the case, Trayvon Martin was a black thug that underestimated his chosen prey.
If King had lived, he would have been brought down to earth. He would have moved on from injustices to the mostly petty or nonexistent grievances as the Civil Rights Movement changed into the Civil Rights Industry.
People like Julian Bond and John Lewis were once admirable. Now they are a joke.
It is hard to believe things would have got as bad as they are if he was still around today
Oh, please. When poor MLK was murdered, everyone sanctified his memory.
Go back & read what the radical black left of that time(the Black Panthers, SNCC, Malcolm X & the Nation of Islam) thought of MLK. "Sell-out" was one of the nicer terms. The hard-black left survived MLK's death to make sure that racial comity was never going to occur on their watch, then or now.
I have long been a great admirer of Mr. Blitt's talent, and I have to presume that those are really his words, heartfelt. And I realize now how strong is the impulse toward religion, latent or otherwise. A religious imperative, if you will.
The New Yorker offers a signature blend of news, culture, and the arts, and it come in several sizes.
Order it to go or you can enjoy it here.
There's free Wi-Fi.
There is more truth in a "Big Gulp" than in this kool aid mag.
First, serial posting alert. Many of you above are in risk of the Althouse stern look treatment for not giving Race pride of place among Boomer Shibboleths. Race matters. See Yesterday's(?) post on the two fallacies of discussing race.
Second, this whole "If only (insert name here) were alive today" business strikes me as displaced infantilism. The sum of people alive today or any other given time are as competent as any other group of humans.
Psychologically, It all boils down to why did mommy and daddy die, or get divorced, or grow old. Why are so many people looking for a parental figure who would make it all right (if only they were still living).
Real leaders inspire others to do what perhaps they never thought they could do. They don't perform the equivalent of fixing broken toys. The former is how you end up with people you wish were still alive!
Finally, give up on the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown as thug meme so that they don't belong in the drawing. That ship has sailed and they will appear in such as long as it is convention to make one of the three wise men black.
Of course they don't belong! I totally agree. But you're pushing a rope. In fact, if you took them out, the whole cover would make no sense. Because "evenhandedness" requires it. It's balance in some perverse sense.
Like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, Martin Luther King was taken way too early.
Just as every cop is a criminal,
And all the sinners saints --
As heads is tails, just call me Lucifer,
'Cause I'm in need of some restraints.
David wrote:
If you look to the right of Dr. King's face and a little higher, you will see a partial face in one of the back rows. It is Barack Obama, leading from behind.
Everyone else on that cover is dead.
Is Barry Blitt making a prediction? A threat? Or a metaphorical statement?
We don't know what things would be like if MLK were not assassinated, but we do know that after he was, those who claim to be his supporters betrayed and trashed everything he stood for.
History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression. One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred. But oh this isn’t the way. For the danger and the weakness of this method is its futility. Violence creates many more social problems than it solves. And I’ve said, in so many instances, that as the Negro, in particular, and colored peoples all over the world struggle for freedom, if they succumb to the temptation of using violence in their struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence isn’t the way.
Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. . . . And our civilization must discover that. Individuals must discover that as they deal with other individuals. . . .So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you." And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.
--Sermon of November 17, 1957
MLK believed that many of those white racists imposing their hate on blacks were themselves victims, that the hate had been engineered and ginned up --
It was a simple thing to keep the poor white masses working for near-starvation wages in the years that followed the Civil War. Why, if the poor white plantation or mill worker became dissatisfied with his low wages, the plantation or mill owner would merely threaten to fire him and hire former Negro slaves and pay him even less. Thus, the southern wage level was kept almost unbearably low. . . .
If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow. He gave him Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man. And he ate Jim Crow. And when his undernourished children cried out for the necessities that his low wages could not provide, he showed them the Jim Crow signs on the buses and in the stores, on the streets and in the public buildings. And his children, too, learned to feed upon Jim Crow, their last outpost of psychological oblivion.
Thus, the threat of the free exercise of the ballot by the Negro and the white masses alike resulted in the establishment of a segregated society. They segregated southern money from the poor whites; they segregated southern mores from the rich whites; they segregated southern churches from Christianity; they segregated southern minds from honest thinking; and they segregated the Negro from everything. That’s what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would pray upon the weakness of others; a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away; a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
We’ve come a long way since that travesty of justice was perpetrated upon the American mind.
--Address at the end of the Selma to Montgomery, March 25, 1965
Trayvon Martin as a bully and a thug. He wasn't "taken too early", he was killed by the logical consequences of his actions, in self defense.
"Finally, give up on the Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown as thug meme"
Never. They can only win if we let them.
We don't know what it would be like if MLK were alive today, but we can say for sure that his words, his way, what he stood for has been totally rejected by the present-day race-baiters, leftist hatemongers, Ferguson rioters, etc.
And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions.
And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.
I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" . . .
I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long because "truth crushed to earth will rise again.". . .
How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever." . . .
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
--Address at the end of the Selma to Montgomery, March 25, 1965
"No lie can live forever." Maybe not, but with the right kind of publicity, like for instance a New Yorker cover, a lie can linger for a generation or two. The police officer was murdered in a deliberate, premeditated way. The others were killed as a result of their own impulsive violence. There's no moral equivalence.
They should dedicate a shrine on the Washington Mall to the Tomb of the Unknown Leftist Victim. Collective farms were one of the worst ideas of the 20th century. When you factor in China, collective farms probably killed more people than the concentration camps and gulags combined. Millions died, and I don't know the name of a single victim. I don't know of any movie, play, or novel that dramatized their plight......They were first introduced in the twenties. There were tons of stuff written about Sacco & Vanzetti, but only two published reports about the famines in the Soviet Union.
gregq,
Then you're pissing into the wind, pushing a rope, pick your metaphor. Yes, Martin and Brown were thugs. Didn't I say that? But without them, the cover makes no sense. They are symbols. No more nor less than every other recognizable person in the illustrator's statement and drawing.
It's not who is or isn't included in the drawing. It's that the drawing itself is maudlin twaddle that serves to evoke a cheap emotional response in The New Yorker's readership. Mission accomplished.
We should all thank Mark for sharing some of Dr. King's words. It would be wonderful if the race-baiters, of both/all races were faced daily with the challenge of responding to those words.
But that's not the effect of the New Yorker cover. The effect (intended I'm sure) is to conflate the largely non-violent movement for civil rights in the South a generation ago with today's movement to blame white racism for the consequences of voluntary misconduct by blacks.
Do you remember those tests where they ask you Which of these doesn't belong with the others? Try that with the New Yorker cover.
it seems disrespectful to draw murdered officers arm-in-arm with those whom they were assassinated to avenge.
And on the inside of the cover, a drawing of Arthur Fonzarelli preparing for his ski jump . . .
How are so many folks named "Barry" (or derivations thereof) drawn to producing satire? Dave Barry, J.M. Barrie, Paul Barry, Rick Barry, Marion Barry...
Boggling.
Barry Blitt's work is just another byte of the barry apple. It's almost as though they are...organized.
I'll be working MLK Day.
Vous?
I can point the way, but I can't tell you to turn right on Route 93 West south Poindexter Road Access to Route 93 West Deerington then keep left then right stay straight.
Barriology is ripe for young talent.
@Bob Ellison: Khrushchev was prescient when he declared "We will Barry you!"
chickelit, good catch. Also, "Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element".
Furthermore, "The rectal balloon catheter used for barium enema can very rarely cause perforation." And as many a sad pall-bearer can attest, "he was daid, so we had to barium".
MLKs replacements, JJ and AS, are wonderful. Aren't they?
Martin Luther King was the creation of the media. They wanted to support civil rights, but the existing civil rights leaders were too old, too corrupt, too angry and too violent. MLK was a God-send, and the MSM fell over itself promoting him.
And he had a very good message: nonviolence, reconciliation, equal opportunity, personal responsibility.
The old corrupt leaders and the young radicals hated him. It is almost certain that one or some of them engineered his murder; James Earl Ray was a cat's paw.
And as soon as MLK was dead, it was back to the old ways, which have continued to this day. Now his heirs fight over his bones. How shameful.
Ultimately, the civil rights movement was a failure.
King: Give us an equal chance to earn our own way
Sharpton: Give us
That's your problem right there.
The civil rights movement was not a failure. The blacks did get the vote and segregation was ended.
The effects of segregation are still with us and this has been a huge disappointment to everyone. Look at the Milwaukee public schools. Look at Jesse Jackson, Marion Barry and Al Sharpton as successors to Martin Luther King? It is unbelievable. Probably, actually undoubtedly, the real leaders are somewhere unknown leading real efforts which don't make the papers because they aren't engaged in fawning on liberals and enriching themselves
wildswan said...
The civil rights movement was not a failure. The blacks did get the vote and segregation was ended.
The effects of segregation are still with us and this has been a huge disappointment to everyone
Disappointing to some, perhaps. But it should be surprising to no one who thinks.
Human beings want to live by their own kind, whether 'kind' is defined by Race or 'Shared Culture and Values'.
When certain values and culture become tightly coupled to a particular Race, and divergent from those of others all around them, don't be surprised to see self-segregation. E.g. Blacks in America, Muslims in France.
This is human nature 101.
In a cultural Melting Pot, the individual flavors merge into something of a unified whole. Not so for a Salad.
I'm not sure how different things would be if MLK had lived. Look at the second of Mark's long King quotes. King really did believe the system of white supremacy in the South was the result of a conspiracy by the rich. Indeed, this was the reason for poverty everywhere in the world. And the solution was to take from the rich and give to the poor.
Many libertarians make a big deal of the idea that behind everything government does is an implicit threat of violence, "If you do not do as we tell you, we will take what you have or put you in prison or worse." King felt that way about war, but when it came to taking from those who shouldn't have and giving to those who should have, that wasn't violence. Quite the contrary, that was love. That was carrying out on earth the will of the God of Love. As was everything that good governments did.
What might be different is that the connection of religion to the modern left would be more obvious.
MLK's greatness is that he showed what a man with courage of belief in scripture could do in a hostile world.
He met head on and defeated the reigning ideology that any black African traits, even in a 90% white cousin, rendered that man with those traits sub-human and intellectually defective compared with them.
Sounds easy, but it was a war. And it is still being fought in the hearts and minds of many, especially in the northern states that still do politics based upon an ideology that white southerners are sub-humans who are intellectually defective when compared with them.
This cover is a truly bizarre effort to equate the current posturing about police and race with the ultimate seriousness of MLK and the Selma march. Supposedly Marx said something about history as tragedy the first time and as farce the second. This takes that idea to an even higher level of absurdity. "Farce" is too kind.
solution was to take from the rich and give to the poor.
No. MLK's ministry was an appeal to conscience to change people's hearts, not a political strategy to seize power. What he worked for is jobs, for blacks to be allowed the freedom and dignity of work and full personhood, not to be given a handout, not to be made a ward of the state. He worked for a harmonious society of solidarity and fraternity where the reality of social interdependence is understood, not a society of "us vs. them," where one side would simply take from the other. That is what caused an unequal society in the first place and never did he advocate replacing that injustice with another injustice.
Mark, I completely agree about MLK's goals. However, as you say, he thought that inequality resulted from one side taking from the other. He was not at all averse to the idea that "in solidarity" "society" should force those with ill-gotten gains to give them up to those in need. MLK very much believed that political power was necessary for social change and thus that the good people needed power, lots of it.
Just as a movement to make race irrelevant has evolved into a movement to never forget race, so I think the realities of politics would have created a world much like our's today.
Where are all the women?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_State_Capitol#mediaviewer/File:Abernathy_Children_on_front_line_leading_the_SELMA_TO_MONTGOMERY_MARCH_for_the_RIGHT_TO_VOTE.JPG
What nonsense! Blitt is portraying Trayvon as small and childlike, even though at 5' 11", he would have been 4 inches taller than King (and Zimmerman). And that's 5' 11" during full rigor mortis -- I don't doubt the bearded youth was a full 6' 160 pounds, or more -- a slight twist of the spine or bend of the knee could take off an inch or more, and he hadn't eaten for over fifteen hours, not even Skittles. The top of his hoodie should come up to MB's hairline, at least.
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