Today is Martin Luther King Day. If you’re not working, it’s worth joining the march from Garfield High School that leaves at noon. And if you are working and you’re downtown, it’s worth stopping at the rally in front of the Federal Building later in the afternoon. It won’t make MLK’s dream of equality manifest instantly, obviously. But rallies have influence over country’s relationship with race. Consider: Teabagger rallies have been brazenly stoking racism in the past year in a way the country hasn’t seen in my memory. And if they can do that with a bunch of crazy xenophobes and dimwit white supremacists, then think about the impact that smart, sensible folks (like you) could have at an MLK rally.

No doubt, some teabaggers are just reaching for the handiest epithet or mocking imagery that they can pin on the president—and those happen to be racially charged. But if people can hang Obama effigies from a noose in the south, folks at rallies can insist the president is born in Africa despite evidence that proves they’re wrong, teabagger enthusiasts can call their (astro turf) movement “the white revolution we’ve been waiting for,” and the national news media broadcasts it as a legitimate view point—that’s an unsettling tolerance and visible rise of racism. And it’s promoted by their hare-brained rallies.

So in the name of anti-racism, it’s worth waving the flag at a level-headed rally. The MLK march begins at noon at Garfield High School at 23rd Avenue and East Jefferson Street and heads down to the federal building for a rally at 2nd Avenue and Madison Street. Here’s more info about the march. And here’s a schedule of other MLK Day events.

10 replies on “MLK Day and the New Racism Teabagger Movement”

  1. They marched by each others’ side, stood together through rally after rally, and shared more than one podium. When Dr. King was thrown in jail, it was Robinson who bailed him out — and started a committee to defend Dr. King and to helped pay his legal costs and finance efforts to bring a million new African Americans into the movement. When Robinson got in trouble for supporting Republican candidates for office, who he believed were more committed to civil rights than their opponents, Dr. King came to his public defense, arguing that he had more than earned the right to make that judgment.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheila-c-j…

  2. Maybe your ‘memory’ isn’t a good gauge by which to measure the nation’s racial temperature, junior. Especially considering your credentials as a sheltered liberal pothead hipster from lilly white Seattle.

    Presidents draw opposition, often flamboyant opposition. Even good ones. But especially when they’re as incompetent as Brobama.

    When people oppose a “black” President they aren’t being racist.

    You probably don’t remember Clinton.
    The hate then was way more than now.
    Clinton was a white Southerner, btw.

    You remember Bush.
    But you mistook the hate for brilliance.
    Cause you agreed with it.
    Rookie mistake.

    Leaders have been HUNG in effigy as long as there has been rope.

    Chill.
    Change your panties.

    And in the name of anti-racism,
    try real hard to get a clue…

  5. Dom, another typo. “national news media broadcasts it at a”? Should be “broadcasts it as a”

    (Always wanted to be a grammer Nazi on Slog and since we’re talking about racists…)

  8. @2
    “Bro-bama” that is the best your racist little brain could come up with?
    Don’t get the connection between lynchings and the south? Hanging politicians in effigy has a long history… in 3rd world nations or the US 100 years ago. In current history…not so much.

    So go shove your shit somewhere else Skippy. Oh and go fuck yourself while you are at it.

  10. Hanging politicians in effigy has a long history… such as American patriots hanging King George.
    And Nixon.
    And LBJ.

    Don’t need to go all the way down South- Washington State has had it’s fair share of lynchings.

    And ‘Brobama’ sings…
    not that a tightassed Liberal would recognize it.

Comments are closed.