Gold from Dross

"In a world as compromised as ours, a soul so exalted was always destined for the Cross. Jefferson's Bible ends before the Resurrection, with Jesus crucified by the Roman occupiers, as the Gospels tell us he was. Jefferson’s austere editing turns the killing almost into an afterthought—a desiccated reiteration of Socrates' final encounter with hemlock, the simple consequence of having offended the wrong people. For Thurman, the Crucifixion was an emphatic lesson in creative weakness: by sticking out his neck and accepting the full implications of his own vulnerability, Christ had radically identified himself with the worst off. Those societal castoffs who could never get a break now had a savior, and a champion, and a model. This, for Thurman, is as great a teaching as anything that Jesus merely said. Where death, for Jefferson's Jesus, is an ending, for Thurman's it is a necessary precondition—just a start." 

At The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham reads Peter Manseau's The Jefferson Bible: A Biography.

And Nicole Penn reviews Manseau's book at The Bulwark.

"Grounded in the Idea That There Is a Single Human Race to Which We All Belong"

"It is time to restore Martin Luther King's dream for American race relations—a dream that, even as it refuses to flinch from the injustices we still need to overcome, defiantly holds onto the idea that what we have in common is ultimately more important than what divides us. We must defend that principle even when it is unpopular, even when it marks you as 'tone-deaf,' and even when it elicits eyerolls from those who imagine they have found more worthy principles. Our ability to remedy racial injustice depends on it." 

Coleman Hughes at Persuasion calls for "liberal anti-racism."

And Yascha Mounk at The Atlantic argues that "[i]f you want to combat illiberalism, casting a vote for Donald Trump is the worst possible thing you can do."

"What Good Is the Promise of Fair Employment When There Is No Employment for Black Americans?"

"Scott King saw economic precarity as not just a side effect of racial subjugation, but as central to its functioning. Political enfranchisement was just the first step. As she explained in 1976, 'People couldn't see the economics of the movement because of the drama. . . . [The] next step was parity in income distribution.' The solution Scott King promoted is an old one, but its time has come: legislation to provide federal governmental guarantees to employment, at living wages, where people are located, and in areas that serve social needs—rather than those of the market."

In a 2017 Boston Review article, David Stein discusses "Coretta Scott King's vision of full employment."

"If Ever There Was a Time to Rejoin the Two and Leverage Nationalism to Counter Ethno-Nationalism, It Is Now"

"Post-Vietnam progressives answered King's call to eschew imperialism but they mistrusted nationalism. Many came to regard it as just another expression of toxic tribalism that modernization and popular enlightenment would one day wash away. Democrats have told stories of class, gender, and racial injustice, and they have rightly pressed for ameliorative policies, but they have typically failed to scale up their message to a full-blown narrative that joins the pursuit of justice to the nation's ideals, identity, and greatness. Most party leaders have also refrained from taking the lead on national interests and security, leaving that to the Republicans. As a result, they left the flag with politicians who carried it into another reckless war—and eventually turned it over to Trump, whose patriotic pretensions too often go unchallenged despite their manifest hollowness."

M. Steven Fish, Neil A. Abrams, and Laila M. Aghaie at Slate argue that "American liberals have been relatively comfortable talking about race but have forgotten how to speak the language of nationalism."

"Makes The Art of the Deal Read Like Anna Karenina"

"That this speech was held up as the framework for American race relations for more than half a century precisely because people of all races understood King to be referring to a difficult and beautiful long-term goal worth pursuing is discounted, of course. White Fragility is based upon the idea that human beings are incapable of judging each other by the content of their character, and if people of different races think they are getting along or even loving one another, they probably need immediate antiracism training. This is an important passage because rejection of King's 'dream' of racial harmony—not even as a description of the obviously flawed present, but as the aspirational goal of a better future—has become a central tenet of this brand of antiracist doctrine mainstream press outlets are rushing to embrace."

Matt Taibbi at Substack criticizes Robin DiAngelo.

As does Jonathan Church in a 2018 Quillette article.

Whitey on the Moon

"The black press questioned how the price tag could be justified when millions of African Americans were still mired in poverty. Testifying to the US Senate on race and urban poverty in 1966, King had observed 'in a few years we can be assured that we will set a man on the moon and with an adequate telescope he will be able to see the slums on Earth with their intensified congestion, decay and turbulence'."

David Smith at The Guardian describes protests in the 1960s over the space race.

"How We Got Here"

NPR runs a "special series" on 1968.

Beware "Bad Faith Claims of Bigotry"

"Ending racism is a necessary, critical goal. But that goal should be pursued in tandem with efforts to address the effects of racism. The wage gap, the health care gap, the education gap, the debt gap — all these disparities would be narrowed by progressive, intersectional economic programs. As popular opinion coalesces around these policies, it’s crucial that we not let our best impulses be weaponized against our interests, any more than conservatives weaponize the worst impulses of their constituents against theirs."

Briahna Gray at The Intercept warns against the "Race Reductionist."

"Burning Conviction, Solidarity, Euphoria"

"Since 1968, America has gone off in a different direction than I had hoped: Reagan, Nixon, and Trump are not the kind of leaders we had in mind back then. In 1968, I would have settled for nothing less than socialism. Twenty-five years after that, something like a European welfare state would have made me happy. Today, just having a reliable subway system appears utopian. The French Revolution, however violent, uprooted the monarchy. The Russian Revolution, however perverse, produced an experiment, albeit a failed one, in economic planning. 1968 not only failed to achieve most of its goals, it set politics off in the wrong direction."

Alan Wolfe at The New Republic looks back fifty years.

"The Effort to Enact Robust Gun-Control Laws in the Nineteen-Sixties Quickly Revealed America’s Racial Fault Lines"

"The Kennedys' home-town paper, the Boston Globe, hoped that the N.R.A. would get 'its first real comeuppance' in the slain reverend's wake. But the N.R.A. has only gained political strength since then. It has weakened elements of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and generally blocked the passage of major gun-control legislation for decades. In the fifty years since, the number of civilians who have died from firearms in the U.S. has exceeded the number of Americans who have been killed in uniform during all the wars in the nation’s history. In 2017, the Journal of the American Medical Association declared gun violence a 'health crisis.' Meanwhile, donations to the N.R.A. tripled after the Parkland school shooting."

Rich Benjamin at The New Yorker looks at politics, race, and firearms fifty years after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"MLK's Family Urges Nation To Spend Anniversary Of His Death Twisting His Words To Fit Own Political Agendas"

"King added that should any companies feel compelled to pervert the legacy of his father to further their corporate interests, that would be even better."

From The Onion.

"His Legacy Is Still Being Written"

The Atlantic presents a special issue on Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It Was the Angriest I Have Ever Been in My Life"

"'I refused to go to the back of the bus,' but 'the teacher pleaded with me. She said it would be advisable.' Eventually, with passengers looking on and the bus ride at a standstill, ML reluctantly gave in. ML, Hiram, and Miss Bradley walked to the back of the bus and grabbed a handle. 'I had to stand all the way to Atlanta,' King remembered decades later, his anger still there. As the bus went up the rural highway, ML had nothing to look at but seated white people and the darkness outside. 'It was late at night and I was tired, but that wasn't the point. It was the humiliation.'"

The Atlantic presents an excerpt from Patrick Parr's The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age.

"It's Time to Loosen the King Family's Grip on MLK's Legacy"

"That still leaves the question of the commercial exploitation of King's words and voice, and who decides. "One can sympathize with, even endorse, the idea that the material should be monetized 'to aid the causes with which [King] is identified.' But Intellectual Properties Management hasn't shown especially good judgment about granting permission. If King's words were all in the public domain, they might be more widely exploited for advertising, but the responsibility would be the advertisers'—and any that abused his words would face public backlash, as Dodge has.
"But at least the advertisers wouldn't be acting with the explicit approval of members of the King family. That does more to undermine Martin Luther King's legacy than any transparently dishonest ad campaign."

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times criticizes "the commercial exploitation of King's words and voice."

"Racial Equality Could Only Be Achieved Through a Combination of Anti-Discrimination Policies and Social-Democratic Economic Policies"

"The horizontal organization of Black Lives Matter ensures a diversity of perspectives among participants and even branches. Nevertheless, the now-commonplace claim at the heart of the recent Black Lives Matter protests against Sanders is that white liberals have long reduced racism to class inequality in order to deflect attention from racial disparities.
"This is not just wrong, but the formulation—which ultimately treats race as unchanging and permanent rather than a product of specific historical and political economic relations—undermines both the cause of racial equality in general and pursuit of equitable treatment in the criminal justice system in particular."

In a 2015 Jacobin article, Touré F. Reed explains "Why Liberals Separate Race from Class."

"Have Much to Teach Us Today"

"These books aren't perfect. They were all written right as the second wave of feminism was taking off in the United States—so they largely leave out gender in their analysis of the problems of American culture, economics, and politics. But all three books still have much to teach us about the relationship between African Americans and their government. African Americans have always provided the left with its most searing critiques of American society. But African Americans have also, time and again, given the left—and the rest of the nation—the most clear-eyed understanding of America’s highest ideals."

Robert Green at Dissent looks back to 1967 and writings by Martin Luther King, Jr., Harold Cruse, and Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton about "How to Fight White Backlash."

"The Biracial Appeal Was Strong"

"Kennedy's unusual coalition may have been related to his willingness to fight for the underdog, but also to avoid political correctness. He was a champion of civil rights but also an opponent of racial preferences. He was deeply concerned about the racial and economic injustices that sparked riots, but also was a sharp critic of lawlessness. 'Though a man of growing compassion,' Matthews writes, 'he believed in law and order and didn’t hesitate to employ the phrase.' Liberals appreciated his opposition to the Vietnam War, but hard hats knew that he didn't want to let wealthy college students off the hook with draft deferments. What made Robert Kennedy unique, wrote Jack Newfield, in words Matthews quotes, 'was that he felt the same empathy for white workingmen and women that he felt for blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.'"

Richard D. Kahlenberg at the New Republic reviews Chris Matthews's Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit.

"Martin Luther King Was a Democratic Socialist"

"In holding these views, King followed in the footsteps of many prominent, influential Americans whose views and activism changed the country for the better. In the 1890s, a socialist Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote 'The Pledge of Allegiance' and a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned 'America the Beautiful.'  King was part of a proud tradition that includes such important 20th century figures as Jane Addams, Eugene Debs, Florence Kelley, John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Walter Reuther. 
"Today, America's most prominent democratic socialist is Senator Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination."

Peter Dreier at The Huffington Post reminds readers that Martin Luther King, Jr. "called for a 'gigantic Marshall Plan' for the poor."

Thomas Sugrue in Jacobin also emphasizes MLK's "subversive, challenging, and upsetting messages."

"They Held No Elected Office. But They Led a Nation"

"The Voting Rights Act was one of the crowning achievements of our democracy, the result of Republican and Democratic effort. President Reagan signed its renewal when he was in office. President Bush signed its renewal when he was in office. One hundred Members of Congress have come here today to honor people who were willing to die for the right it protects. If we want to honor this day, let these hundred go back to Washington, and gather four hundred more, and together, pledge to make it their mission to restore the law this year."


Time provides a transcript of President Obama's speech in Selma, Alabama, marking fifty years since "Bloody Sunday."


James Fallows and Matt Ford at The Atlantic react to the speech.


As does Jonathan Chait at New York, and Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast.

"Happy Robert E. Lee Day!"

"All of this raises an obvious question: How did Lee get tangled up in our national commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement? The best answer is convenience. In states that commemorated Lee, lawmakers who approved of MLK Day didn’t want to create two holidays in January. Instead, they combined the two days. As a concept, it was a poor pairing. As a bureaucratic solution, it worked."


Jamelle Bouie in Slate looks at the peculiar institution of Robert E. Lee Day.