Agenda-driven African-Americans obfuscate King's message

Ari Kaufman and Howie Satinoff

Like other critics have recently mused, why is Dr. Martin Luther King the only individual whom the United States currently honors with a national holiday? It surely does not make one "racially insensitive" to opine that, in lieu of Dr. King's day, and in deference to all the other great individualists - of various ethnicities - our country has seen (Parks, Chavez, Anthony, Chief Seattle, Hyam Solomon), that we either honor each fairly and separately, or more judiciously, we propose the ratification of a National "Equality Day."

Equality Day? Maybe it sounds like something a 10-year old would come up with, and I can just hear it now: You mean on the other 364 days we're unequal? But nonetheless, the overwhelming issue remains that MLK Day is the only day of the year that our great nation where a singular American is honored. Remember Washington and Lincolns' birthdays? They're basically dead white males now. And technically, Columbus was not an "American," though he is nonetheless killed by the PC Thought Police as the ultimate in white oppression.

Martin Luther King Jr. had 3 things going for him:

1) Historical forces converged on him
2) He was a great orator and natural born leader
3) He was assassinated (if he lived there would likely never have been a day named after him. Napoleon once said, "If Christ was not crucified he would never have been God."

As far as we can see, his "content of character over skin color" legacy has been turned on its head. There is more racial animosity now than in the 60s due to Blacks achieving equality, especially in certain parts of the world. This can be attributed to the racial demagogues who preach that equality isn't good enough; they long to be the more equal pigs in George Orwell's "Animal Farm." However, what they really want is continued racial schism, lest they'd be out of a job.

Yesterday Jesse Jackson, speaking at a Rainbow Coalition breakfast in Chicago, continued to twist King's message to benefit his political and financial gains, stating that blacks are free but not equal in life expectancy, access to education and infant mortality. Later, Jackson naturally urged the breakfast's 2,000 attendees to continue to "fight for change." NAACP president, Julian Bond, echoed the hypocrisy when he noted, "We've made great progress over the last 50 years...progress has always been stop-and-start, and sometimes backup. We're in a holding pattern right now."

How does this make the African-American doctors, lawyers and successful businessmen feel? Are they stuck in this same purgatory of a "holding pattern"?

In October, a black caller to the Rush Limbaugh program once claimed that the Jacksons, Sharptons, Bonds, and even politicians like Barak Obama and Carol Moseley Braun, via their continued declarations that blacks are being somehow "held down," have assumed the role of slave owner, and that the majority of blacks are working on their modern plantation. Quite harsh for sure, but these accomplished African Americans, as (syndicated talk show host, director and best-selling African-American author) Larry Elder once claimed, "do not preach what they practiced." A vast majority of successful African American politicians, writers and famous figures, did not "benefit" from the victim mentality that Jackson and colleagues insist is still holding them down.

As we continue to use the term "African-American" in this article and in life, it continues to irk us. This is the ultimate PC term. The shining example of this was when, during the recent riots in France (which no one ever talks about now), a CNN anchor called one of the pseudo-French black rioters an "African American." The term "African-American" is consistently used to hammer home the slavery issue, to unrelentingly remind us white imperial racists that we owe them something; even if these whites, like our (Jewish) families, were slaves in Eastern Europe and Russia during the same time period.

The fact is that Black Americans today are as far away from their African heritage as is possible, but since Africa is where the slaves came from, and still are (courtesy mostly of Islam), Blacks today - for the most part - still see themselves as victims rather than just ordinary Americans. And organizations like the ACLU, the NAACP and other radical entities will never let them forget this. Financially and influentially, they have too much to lose if people ever did.

Dr. King was a great man, but the fact that President's Day, Columbus Day and Veteran's Day are no longer celebrated by most public schools, and Dr. King Day is essentially the only holiday we celebrate to honor any ethnic group or religion is, well, unfair and unequal. Martin Luther King would most assuredly be appalled.

This is not a political issue; it's a common sense issue.


Ari Kaufman and Howie Satinoff are former public schoolteachers in Los Angeles and New York City, respectively. Both are now freelance journalists.