King Day
Here was my MLK Day editorial, which ran Monday:
The editorial page editor decided to take out the word "Jackass." I understand that, in a way. In a place like this, an edgy "bad word" can become the focus of so much attention that it can be the only word people see in the 500 or so that you write. But it's also a symptom of how newspapers in America are timid and fogyish. How we lose a reader every time we run an obituary, and don't pick up any every time we run a high school graduation list.
Meanwhile, the "Boston Globe" reports that John Kerry "used Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast ... to decry what he called the suppression of thousands of would-be voters last November."
Imagine that! In Boston. Where there are about four Democrats to every Republican. Down here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the red-blue ratios are reversed, the opposite situation prevailed.
In GOP-heavy suburban Manheim Township, people waited in line more for hours to vote at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church. The lines in the suburban districts were 200 people deep and more, the parking lots overflowed, traffic backed up onto the highways. In the Democratic districts, like the one that votes in Reynolds Elementary School, in the west end of Lancaster City, "there was just a small line. By 8:30 a.m. voters had to wait just 5 to 10 minutes," according to the newspaper.
Our America, indeed. Maybe a lot of people just came out to vote. Maybe the powers that control the city or county -- be it Boston or Lancaster County -- ought to think about splitting some precincts. Maybe some things aren't the fault of Racism or George W. Bush.
There’s an e-mail going around, urging people to spend no money on Inauguration Day. On “Not One Damn Dime Day,” as it’s being called, “those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. ... For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.”
And so forth. There’s even a Web site about it, but it doesn’t explain why keeping your wallet zipped for 24 hours helps anything anywhere or even gets a message across. Don’t expect banner headlines Thursday that read, “Lots of Americans ‘just looking.’ "
Instead, the e-mail boasts, “There’s no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left- or right-wing agenda to rant about. On ‘Not One Damn Dime Day’ you take action by doing nothing.”
Somebody’s coined a word for this sort of thing: “Slactivism.”
It’s hard to imagine anything less effective, anything more calculated to make people feel good, look foolish and be left, whether they know it or not, practically ineffective. It’s as if this part of the anti-war movement wishes to be “incorrigible minoritarians,” to use a critical word from the old British pacifist movement.
Contrast that to the dynamic legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., whose life we celebrate today, and his supporters. When King called a boycott, it had a specific target, a tangible objective, a means to measure success.
And contrast it to what will be going on today throughout Lancaster city. More than 250 volunteers will fan out across the city to paint, clean, help the elderly and do good for the community, all in King’s name.
If King were alive today, he would find much to speak out about. Yet his chosen tactic would not be, to invoke another notorious recent example, getting a bunch of pals together to drop trousers on someone’s lawn in a ["Jackass"] stunt and then file a lawsuit against perplexed local cops.
Rather the opposite. Time magazine reported in 1963 that King “dresses with funereal conservatism (five of six suits are black, as are most of his neckties).” He dressed like a preacher, but his followers, who were not preachers, dressed that way, too. They sought to persuade, not offend, and they succeeded. They understood, for instance, the symbolic value of middle-class dress codes in getting the attention of people whose minds they sought to change.
When the sun sets today, the auditorium at Crispus Attucks Community Center will have a fresh coat of paint, Shreiner Concord Cemetery on Mulberry Street — the original integrated burial ground of the city — will be spruced up and the city overall will be a better place, on its face and in its heart.
And if some of those tired volunteer workers stop off at the end of the day for a hot drink or an ice pack, and should happen to spend a dime or two in the process, consider who has done more for the human race.
The editorial page editor decided to take out the word "Jackass." I understand that, in a way. In a place like this, an edgy "bad word" can become the focus of so much attention that it can be the only word people see in the 500 or so that you write. But it's also a symptom of how newspapers in America are timid and fogyish. How we lose a reader every time we run an obituary, and don't pick up any every time we run a high school graduation list.
Meanwhile, the "Boston Globe" reports that John Kerry "used Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast ... to decry what he called the suppression of thousands of would-be voters last November."
"In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes. Same voting machines, same process, our America," Kerry said.
Imagine that! In Boston. Where there are about four Democrats to every Republican. Down here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the red-blue ratios are reversed, the opposite situation prevailed.
In GOP-heavy suburban Manheim Township, people waited in line more for hours to vote at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church. The lines in the suburban districts were 200 people deep and more, the parking lots overflowed, traffic backed up onto the highways. In the Democratic districts, like the one that votes in Reynolds Elementary School, in the west end of Lancaster City, "there was just a small line. By 8:30 a.m. voters had to wait just 5 to 10 minutes," according to the newspaper.
Our America, indeed. Maybe a lot of people just came out to vote. Maybe the powers that control the city or county -- be it Boston or Lancaster County -- ought to think about splitting some precincts. Maybe some things aren't the fault of Racism or George W. Bush.
