At the dedication for the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C. on Friday, the civil rights leader’s daughter made an interesting mistake regarding Abraham Lincoln. According to her, Lincoln is best known for signing the Declaration of Independence. “But as I close, I close with the recognition that daddy is standing, Lincoln is seated,” Bernice King said . “Lincoln remembered for signing the Declaration of Independence. Daddy being remembered as standing up for truth and standing up for justice and standing up for righteousness and standing up for peace and standing up for freedom. Daddy is now standing on the National Mall in our nation’s capital.” Watch it below: The historical mistake could be simply an honest one that happens all the time when people speak in front of crowds. She probably just meant to say “Emancipation Proclamation.” But it’s curious that Bernice — who has been labeled a conservative on some issues — would draw the juxtaposition that her father is now immortalized as someone who is standing while Lincoln is immortalized as someone who is sitting. It seems she wants to draw a distinction, and may even want to go as far as to point out her father’s legacy is grander than Lincoln’s — and their memorials now recognize that. Comparing legacies is difficult. But her seeming attempt to do so begs the question: Is Bernice King saying that MLK stood for civil rights while Lincoln just sat around? And if she is, would that mean the simple case of misspeaking is something more? Is it actually a misguided attack on Lincoln, trying to lump him into the group of Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration and who are often ridiculed as being racists ? Maybe. If so, it would seem to go against how MLK viewed Lincoln. According to his writings , he saw Lincoln as standing for equal rights: We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule. The spirit of Lincoln still lives ; that spirit born of the teachings of the Nazarene, who promised mercy to the merciful, who lifted the lowly, strengthened the weak, ate with publicans, and made the captives free. In the light of this divine example, the doctrines of demagogues shiver in their chaff. America experiences a new birth of freedom in her sons and daughters; she incarnates the spirit of her martyred chief. Their loyalty is repledged; their devotion renewed to the work He left unfinished. My heart throbs anew in the hope that inspired by the example of Lincoln, imbued with the spirit of Christ, they will cast down the last barrier to perfect freedom. And I with my brother of blackest hue possessing at last my rightful heritage and holding my head erect, may stand beside the Saxon–a Negro–and yet a man! [Emphasis added] Or maybe it was just a simple mistake. That’s possible. (H/T: NewsBusters )
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MLK’s Daughter on Abe Lincoln: He’s Known for Signing Declaration of Independence
From Emma Silvers, at Slate : On the 2 train uptown during the morning commute the other day, I was in my usual state of sleepwalk — face crammed into a fellow passenger’s armpit — when a young woman standing 3 feet away from me removed an Amazon Kindle from her oversize designer purse and began to read. A surprising wave of disgust overcame me as I stared at the smooth metallic back of the thing, at her manicured fingernails positioned against it, at her face as she read … whatever it was that she was reading. That was part of it, I realized, trying to analyze my own ridiculous, knee-jerk judgment of this stranger. I couldn’t see what she was reading, and it bothered me. I couldn’t peer in that tiny window onto someone’s interior world, or delight in the juxtaposition that a book choice sometimes presents — when you notice a stuffy, 90-something grandma buried in a trashy romance novel, or a would-be gangsta engrossed in “Love in the Time of Cholera.” But at 26, a supposed child of the Internet generation (who, I recently discovered, must henceforth be referred to as “The Millennials,” and discussed in the media mainly in reference to our refusal to get real jobs or move out of our parents’ basements), I’ve begun to feel out of step with this particular aspect of youth culture. I’m starting to understand what my grandmother must feel when she heads to the library once a week to dutifully check the e-mail account my uncle created for her. As I stared at the woman, fully engaged, happily using this very practical and very expensive device that, for all I know, she saved her pennies for a year to buy, I felt something entirely out of proportion with the situation: I felt personally slighted. I never thought my lack of interest in e-readers made me particularly unique — until recently, when Consumer Reports and national headlines started implying I was actually in a freakish minority. Earlier this summer, you could practically hear the collective weeping of small publishers nationwide when Amazon announced that Kindle books were outselling hardcovers by a 180-to-100 margin. Then came the drumbeat for the thinner, cheaper Kindle model forthcoming in September, and the competitors’ accompanying rush to stay in the game. A crop of stories attempted to sort out the so-called e-reader wars: Kindle vs. iPad vs. Nook – which is right for you? More service-oriented articles provided tips for all the people who aren’t me: “Copying Text From Your Kindle to Computer,” or “The Best Way to Highlight Passages on Your Nook” (hint: not with an actual highlighter). These articles all had slightly different aims, but their bottom line was the same: Of course you need to buy an e-reader. What are you, a Mennonite? One recent story in the New York Times went so far as to claim that iPads and Kindles and Nooks are making the very act of reading better by — of course — making it social. As one user explained, “We are in a high-tech era and the sleekness and portability of the iPad erases any negative notions or stigmas associated with reading alone.” Hear that? There’s a stigma about reading alone . (How does everyone else read before bed — in pre-organized groups?) Regardless, it turns out that, for the last two decades, I’ve been Doing It Wrong. And funny enough, up until e-books came along, reading was one of the few things I felt confident I was doing exactly right. More at the link . I haven’t made the leap yet, although I doubt I’m as opposed to e-reading as our essayist here.
