When Martin Luther King Jr. Called Out "White Moderates" From a Cell in a Birmingham Jail, His Problem was With Their Embrace of the Status Quo Not Their Whiteness

Michael Harriot of The Root often bashes whites as if we’re some monolithic group with no individual members, with no individual lives, loves, struggles, ideas, priorities, consciences, or leanings. If 57 percent of people who identify as white voted for Trump, then everyone with white skin is guilty of voting for Trump, no matter who we actually voted for. Harriot’s columns, by shining a light on the neverending racial injustices that define life in the US, are sometimes insightful. But too often, those columns, with their blanket statements about whites are remarkably reminiscent of the blanket statements by white bigots about people of color.  

In his column on Thursday, March 5, 2020, Harriot went over the rainbow. When Martin Luther King Jr wrote his  Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he was calling out the white moderate ministers who, in 1963, labeled King’s civil rights efforts in Alabama "unwise and untimely.” Did Harriot imagine that his own open “Dear Sir or White Man” letter, written to “White Liberals Blaming 'Low Information' Black Voters for Not Cleaning Up White Folks’ Mess,” would evoke King?

To my eye, it did the opposite. Harriot’s “letter” which takes great offense at being questioned about a vote for the status quo, made Harriot look more like the “white moderates” who King condemned from that jail cell.  

And it’s not just white Sanders supporters who are doing this. There are a lot of super-progressive black youth who dismissively cast anyone who hasn’t seen the light of Socialist Democratic Jesus as an uninformed, backwater hillbilly who needs education.

Doesn’t it sound like Mr. Harriot is angry at the “unwise and untimely” actions that the wiser, more moderate person eschews? (And, just a PS: no large block of progressives, anywhere, label centrists as uninformed hillbillies. They reserve that slur, true or not, for Trump supporters.)

While it’s frustrating that people like Harriot dismiss the Sanders movement, I support his right and anyone’s right to vote however for whomever. We are individuals, and our reasons for our decisions are, or should be, individual. My concern is that people are voting for what they see as the safe choice, which I see as a more dangerous one. But I don’t get to make the call for anyone but me. Harriot, however, wants to make it seem that making what’s perceived as a safer choice is like standing in solidarity against the white oppressor.

Black people in the South didn’t create the racial wealth gap or income inequality. Don’t ask black people to mop up a mess they had no hand in creating.

And, contrary to your opinion, black people have never done anything out of moderation or centrism. Freedom and equality have always been our motivation.

Except, in this case, a vote for Biden, despite the acknowledgement that your candidate of choice has, throughout his political history, been actively engaged in legislating against freedom and equality, doesn’t actually demonstrate the above, does it? No matter how loudly or fiercely Harriot protests, a selective presentation of history will be overwhelmed by a fuller reading of the record.

So, if Harriot is acknowledging his own vote for that white moderate (and I’m not 100% sure he is), what does that make Harriot? He tries to spin it by pretending that all whites are the same:

In the entire history of America, white people have never initiated, supported or participated in, to a significant degree, in a single mass movement for freedom and equality for anyone other than white people.

But here’s the problem: one of those “white people,” Sanders, has been doing all the above, all his adult life.

While Biden was boosting incarceration, bashing bussing, and further enriching rich people, Sanders was marching with King, being handcuffed to his fellow protesters, and fighting for a fair wage. For all people.

 

"Not me. Us." isn't just a slogan, Mr. Harriot. The man you scoff at lives those words, and not just when the cameras are on him. They’re not much different in essence from these, written in a Birmingham jail: 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." 

Maybe if you also lived those words, you wouldn't feel so threatened by those who do.

  

Anyway, go ahead: rant, rave, scream about the injustice that was done to moderates by having a moderate label slapped on the moderate voter. Or own it. Nothing wrong with being a moderate. Own it.  

But maybe, in the back of your mind, let these words of Reverend King filter in: 

"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." 

Not me. Us.

  

The Establishment Limits

There is nothing wrong with your TV screen. Do not attempt to change the channel.

We are controlling the narrative. Whatever station you choose will tell you the same thing: get back in line. Or else. Do not move beyond the Establishment Limits.

We control who you imagine is electable. Nevermind if he stands for nothing and appears to understand even less. Nevermind if, when his face fills your screen, he only looks good because we’ve blurred everything you thought you knew.

You don’t need crystal clarity. You just need to participate in exactly the way we tell you to.

You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Establishment Limits.

(With apologies to The Outer Limits)

- Anita Bartholomew

Bernie Sanders Threatens Government Of, By, and For the Moneyed Class— Hence the Establishment Freak-Out.

If you read the latest Must-Stop-Sanders article in The New York Times, you’d be tempted to believe that all those donors and establishment politicians quoted are most concerned that Bernie Sanders might not just lose the presidency, but also threaten Democratic party gains in other offices.    

Others in the party view Mr. Sanders as such an existential threat that they see stopping him from winning the nomination as less risky than a public convention fight.  

But what if we’re reading this wrong? What if he’s an “existential threat” to the people in power, not because he might lose, but, because he might win? Why is the party establishment willing to risk alienating Bernie’s voters—again—knowing that that might guarantee another four years of Trump?  

Simple. Bernie wants to end government-by-bribe.

That’s the secret behind the freak-out. Not the potential loss of healthcare for those who need it if the Democratic nominee fails to get elected. Not the continued poisoning of air we breathe and the water we drink, not the destruction of public lands for profit, or the separating of immigrant families into cages, or that the laws will continue to be flouted. Money trickles down from billionaires and corporations into SuperPACs and party accounts, enriches party leaders, and gives them personal power that rivals White House power. And Sanders wants that to end.

Money determines whether a congressional rep gets desirable committee assignments that garner more power…and more money. Money awaits the losers, too, if only they play the game.

When it appears that someone whose values aren’t immediately translatable into cash equivalents might take control, threatening the whole corrupt engine, it inspires panic.  

So, sure, it’s more important to those Democrats who thrive in the current system to beat Sanders than to beat Trump.

Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas was singled out in the above-mentioned New York Times article, saying that even if Bernie came to the convention with 40 percent of delegates, while the other six candidates split the balance among them it “…wouldn’t be enough to convince her to vote for him on the second ballot.”

The article neglected to note that Rep. Escobar was sent on an all-expenses paid trip to Paris, Rome, and Brussels last November by Third Way Foundation. PR Watch has this to say about the rabidly anti-Bernie corporatist group:

Several corporate donors to Third Way are or have been members of the GOP-aligned American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate bill mill that links lobbyists with state lawmakers. Amgen, Baxter Healthcare, CVS Caremark, DuPont, and trade groups the Consumer Technology Association and NCTA - The Internet and Television Association are members.

Most imagine the mantra “Vote Blue, No Natter Who,” will keep voters in line.

But if the superdelegates deny the nomination to the people’s choice, how many individual voters will feel cheated? Their vote didn’t count in the primary; why bother in the general?   

Meanwhile, among the richest and most powerful, there appears to be a hankering for a brokered convention to end in Bloomberg’s nomination. In fact, Bloomberg appears to be counting on that. He has already spent more than Clinton and Trump combined did in 2016. For that, he’s managed, as of today, about 16 percent support. And roughly the same number of voters said they would not vote for Bloomberg if he were the nominee as have said they would not vote for Sanders.

So, Bloomberg’s “Vote Blue No Matter Who” support is the weakest when you consider the limited 1^st choice support his money has bought to date. But establishment politicians who make up the bulk of super-delegates know he’ll share the wealth. As he reminded us all in the last debate, he bought, er, got about 21 House seats with his money in 2018.

Granted, he’d lose to Trump. But…money! Everyone wins!

Except those of us who want a fairer system, clean air and water, and justice and compassion for the most vulnerable. 

- Anita Bartholomew