From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 22:49:24 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
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> Edmund Grech wrote:
>
>>Mike Lorrey wrote: <<<WHile I understand that there are many in europe who
>>
>>>don't recognise that the individual human has a right to defend themselves
>>>with appropriate force, we in the US do, and we'd appreciate it if
>>>know-it-all europeans stopped shoulding all over us.>>>
>>>
>>Martin Luther King vs. Malcolm X
>>
>>Same Cause, yet one is revered, the other villified. Who was successful and
>>why?
>>The Black rights movement could lay claim to far greater cause for resorting
>>to violence and still . . .
>>
>
> This is a popular if inaccurate view of the civil rights movement in the
> US in the 60's. King was an abject failure at getting actual legislative
> and judicial change beyond mere tokenism. It was not until groups like
> Malcom X's and the Black Panthers scared the bejeezus out of whitey that
> Civil Rights were given the fast track.
Historically inaccurate. If anything, when some groups began to
resort to violence the civil rights movement lost steam and the
suppression of black leadership became stronger because more
people thought it necessary. It was the non-violent call for
justice and many tens of thousands, black and white, putting
their bodies on the line calling for simple justice that gave
the issue a huge ground swell of respect and won the hearts of
the country.
>
> The black community reveres King as a saint, but not an actual 'hero'.
They revere him as both, as do many of us. He was also a martyr.
> Malcom X and Hewey Newton are the heroes of those in the black community
> who are adamant about their civil rights. King is primarily revered in
> America as a society specifically because it is whites who still decide
> what laws get passed and what textbooks get written, and they'd rather
> that blacks remember King and not Malcom or Newton.
Talk about revisionism. They are all remembered. And Newton
was not the violent firebrand much of the time he was portrayed
as. It is my suspicion that we set up the civil rights movement
to not go too far by inflaming violent activism, casting and
pushing leaders into that role when it was not there own real
choice and assasinating King.
- samantha
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