Sunday, March 28, 2021

Martin Luther King Jr., Colorblindness, and Plagiarism

By Nicholas Stix

About two weeks ago, in an email I was later unable to find, An Old Friend asked parenthetically whether I knew if MLK Jr.’s passage promoting “colorblindness” in his August 23, 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech was plagiarized.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

I have never heard of anyone claiming it was plagiarized. The passages from the speech that we know were plagiarized, were stolen from the Rev. Archibald Carey, from a speech the preacher had delivered at the 1952 Republican National Convention.

(The speech King delivered was written by Vincent Harding, or Stanley Levison, or Clarence B. Jones; every source seems to credit someone else.)

My hunch is that the speechwriter who inserted “I have a dream” got it from Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics to the Styne-Sondheim song in Gypsy, which was a hit, 1959 Broadway show nominated for eight Tonys, and a hit 1962 movie, that was also nominated for a slew of awards.

However, long after the speech was exposed as a plagiary, people fabricated racial fairy tales, turning Stephen Sondheim and the Rev. Archibald Carey’s words into King’s words, which he had supposedly extemporaneously summoned!

Regarding the colorblind passage, one would hope that if one were going to commit plagiarism, one would seek after better material. The passage is as clunky as they come. “The content of their character”?! There’s just character; there’s no content.

(I believe AOF mentioned this.)

The only explanation I can come up with for the clunkiness, was that the MLK speechwriter was using parallelism: Color of skin/content of character. However, he could just as well have used color/character.

(King’s greatness as an orator permitted him to transcend his material. However, when one reads the speech, one is dragged back down to Earth.)

I believe that the “colorblind” passage was written as a “pull quote” for MLK’s press allies. MLK didn’t for a second believe in colorblindness. As Steven Farron points out in his masterpiece of a book, The Affirmative Action Hoax: Diversity, the Importance of Character, and Other Lies, King had demanded racial spoils before the speech. Meanwhile, at the time of his 1968 murder, he was in Memphis demanding that all public sector jobs be distributed, based on hard racial quotas.

King was a race man, and a communist (he privately used the term “Marxist”).

That people cite the clunky passage so much is, I believe, solely due to King’s moral authority. He said the darnedest things, and people still cite him, as if they made sense.

The bases for his moral authority would be: •

His career as a serial plagiarist;
• The violence he did to Christian theology, which he did not at all believe in (e.g., he did not believe in the virgin birth);
• His commission of thousands of acts of adultery, many of them using his status as a Christian man of the cloth as cover, including “counseling” (as he and his black BU theology classmates put it, with a chuckle) pretty parishioners;
• His theft of tax-deductible donations, which he used for prostitutes and such;
• His support of violent crime;
• His opposition to America’s system of law, and to the police who enforced it;
• His treasonous support of our enemies in the War in Vietnam; and
His rape.

 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

FLOYD TRIAL--OPENING STATEMENTS

black prosecutor Jerry Blackwell and Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson spent about 2 hours on the incident with Blackwell showing video of Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd.Nothing new here on the prosecution's side."Believe the video," he said--and ignore the toxicology.

What was new for me is what Nelson claimed--that Floyd,while being arrested,swallowed drugs to keep police from finding them on his person.So what may have started out in one direction with an attempted arrest,changed after Floyd ingested drugs during the arrest to conceal drug evidence.

That's what I heard Nelson assert and that's a game changer if it can be proven.

Recess quickly followed at noon.

--GRA

Anonymous said...

Update:The only other news I thought was interesting--and not reported since last May--was that police called for a code two and then code three ambulance BEFORE Floyd was placed on the ground--which was what Floyd requested to have police do for him(instead of sitting in the car).

I had always thought no ambulance was called until Floyd had stopped moving--but that was not true.That was just something the pro-blm forces(including media,Minnesota AG) decided to hide conveniently.

-GRA

Anonymous said...

Chauvin's squad car(#330)actually called for an ambulance with sirens--6 minutes before Floyd was placed on the ground.Not even a dereliction of duty here.

--GRA

Anonymous said...

Gonna be something when those tapes of the FBI recording KKKing made available to the public. If they ever are.

Anonymous said...

The second witness,Alisha Oyler,a Speedway employee at the time Floyd was arrested,was a dandy.A trashy White girl,who I'm 99% sure is a black banger(she even has a bit of that imitative "black talk" going on),answered the prosecution's question with,"I'm trying not to swear--I thought the police were 'messing with someone(Floyd)."

Oyler is a horrible witness,except for the fact she videotaped the incident on her cellphone,she'd be worthless--she didn't remember much,but she did show a hatred of "the PO-lice"--as blacks and their White GFs tend to do.
It's 3:52 pm.
Whatever the DA is trying to accomplish with the first two witnesses is a total mystery to me.
--GRA

Anonymous said...

black security guard Donald Williams was number 3 witness--he theorized that the more Chauvin pressed on Floyd's neck,"the more it took the life out of him."
(GRA:When in all actuality,the drugs Floyd ingested were probably working on his heart and lungs,more and more--which neither the cops,crowd or Williams could know.)


Video was shown of Floyd,with his now famous 'I can't breathe(numerous times)"rap,but as we all know by now,Floyd TALKING means he COULD breathe.

Then the judge adjourned for the day.

What I viewed and what the CourtTv analysts saw must be two different court proceedings,as they thought the prosecution's witnesses were "strong","while I saw them producing zero benefit to the state's case.

--GRA

Anonymous said...

"The violence he did to Christian theology, which he did not at all believe in (e.g., he did not believe in the virgin birth)"

According to Jackie Kennedy during the church service for JFK KKKing had a running commentary mocking Catholic ritual.

KKKing had a lotta faults. No statute for him damnit.