The 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King ‘s “I Have a Dream” speech is of course when President Obama would also try to leave his own mark on history. The first African-American to break through the various ceilings and achieve the highest post in the land is historic in its own right. One would hope that the words delivered in this historic moment would be understood. To do that though you had to look beyond the history and actually parse what was being said. He draped himself in the legacy of Dr. King, and then changed it. What he did was subtle, but profound. His world view was a perversion of what the founders implemented. And this speech laid it bare for everyone to see, if they were looking.
The beginning of the speech paid homage to past leaders and their history. It rightly gave them the credit they deserved for getting the nation to where we are. It recognized the sacrifice that made his speech possible:
Because they marched, America became more free and more fair — not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability. America changed for you and for me. and the entire world drew strength from that example, whether the young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid.
If you read that the same way I did, you noticed a group that was left out. President Obama was a racist. I don’t think that can be argued. One of the first major errors of his administrations was declaring that a white police officer acted stupidly in arresting an African-American professor. He also went further and suggested that race was a factor.
“But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 … that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
So I am sure that a specific group was left out intentionally. But what if we weigh that against what MLK said in his historic speech:
The meaning behind those words is clear. Regardless of our inherent, unchangeable traits, we will join in brotherhood, and be treated equally. The laws, the rules, the judgements passed down should all be rooted in the same firmament.
And here is where the former president takes that vision and turns it on its head. It isn’t good enough to make sure that all of our country’s guidelines be implemented and exercised in the same way. No, there should be an added stipulation. To justify that he will put words into Dr. King’s mouth:
For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal? This idea — that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood; that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security — this idea was not new. Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms — as a promise that in due time, “the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.”
If you look at that carefully, you noticed that he changed the rules. He is saying that no matter how a person got there, they should be able to “afford the meal.” This is an immense change from equality. We have now moved on to equity. No matter where you start you should get the same thing in the end. You can’t ensure that unless you rig the game in the beginning, or take away at the end. Those aren’t the pure and righteous intentions that we embraced in King’s speech. They are the seeds of division. It is the argument of the haves and have nots. This is classic Marxist class struggle.