Monday Open Thread | Happy Birthday, Dr. King

Posted on January 16, 2017 by rikyrah

Today is when we celebrate the National Birthday honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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This entry was posted in Civil Rights, History, Honor, Open Thread, Politics and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

52 Responses to Monday Open Thread | Happy Birthday, Dr. King

  9. rikyrah says:
    January 16, 2017 at 5:40 pm

    With All Due Disrespect

    Paul Krugman
    JAN. 16, 2017

    …………………………………………

    Now Mr. Lewis says that he won’t attend the inauguration of Donald Trump, whom he regards as an illegitimate president.

    As you might expect, this statement provoked a hysterical, slanderous reaction from the president-elect – who, of course, got his start in national politics by repeatedly, falsely questioning President Obama’s right to hold office. But Mr. Trump — who has never sacrificed anything or taken a risk to help others — seems to have a special animus toward genuine heroes. Maybe he prefers demonstrators who don’t get beaten?

    But let’s not talk about Mr. Trump’s ravings. Instead, let’s ask whether Mr. Lewis was right to say what he said. Is it O.K., morally and politically, to declare the man about to move into the White House illegitimate?

    Yes, it is. In fact, it’s an act of patriotism.

    By any reasonable standard, the 2016 election was deeply tainted. It wasn’t just the effects of Russian intervention on Mr. Trump’s behalf; Hillary Clinton would almost surely have won if the F.B.I. hadn’t conveyed the false impression that it had damaging new information about her, just days before the vote. This was grotesque, delegitimizing malfeasance, especially in contrast with the agency’s refusal to discuss the Russia connection.

    Was there even more to it? Did the Trump campaign actively coordinate with a foreign power? Did a cabal within the F.B.I. deliberately slow-walk investigations into that possibility? Are the lurid tales about adventures in Moscow true? We don’t know, although Mr. Trump’s creepy obsequiousness to Vladimir Putin makes it hard to dismiss these allegations. Even given what we do know, however, no previous U.S. president-elect has had less right to the title. So why shouldn’t we question his legitimacy?

    And talking frankly about how Mr. Trump gained power isn’t just about truth-telling. It may also help to limit that power.

    It would be one thing if the incoming commander in chief showed any hint of humility, of realizing that his duty to the nation requires showing some respect for the strong majority of Americans who voted against him despite Russian meddling and the F.B.I.’s disinformation dump. But he hasn’t and won’t.

    Instead, he’s lashing out at and threatening anyone and everyone who criticizes him, while refusing even to admit that he lost the popular vote. And he’s surrounding himself with people who share his contempt for everything that is best in America. What we’re looking at, all too obviously, is an American kakistocracy — rule by the worst.

    Reply
  12. rikyrah says:
    January 16, 2017 at 4:38 pm

    Elections have consequences…as we all know and understand!

    http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bills/2017/01/these_americans_got_raises_thanks_to_obama_s_overtime_rules_and_then_saw.html

    When Kristin Hook, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, found out in early November that she would receive a raise of almost $4,000 the next month, she immediately increased her contributions to her retirement savings account. A week or two earlier, at Arizona State University’s Downtown Phoenix campus, social media coordinator Gordon Chaffin, who regularly puts in 45- to 50-hour weeks, learned from his employer that he would be eligible for overtime pay beginning December 1.

    Neither Hook’s raise or Chaffin’s overtime eligibility happened. Instead, they became two of the estimated 4.2 million workers left in personal-finance limbo when a federal district judge in Texas issued a last-minute stay to the Obama administration’s initiative to overhaul the rules for overtime pay, which had led many employers to announce forthcoming changes to their workers’ compensation. After the ruling, Hook’s and Chaffin’s workplaces announced they would hold off on any changes initiated to bring them into compliance with the now-stalled regulation—a regulation that the Trump administration may be reluctant to defend.

    These workers were promised they would receive raises or overtime pay. And then, a presidential upset and a judicial ruling later, that promised money was taken away. “The university should not renege on something they said they were going to do,” Hook told me.

    Reply
  15. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 16, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    Got dammit! diana-ross-gif

    Puhleeze! Get outtahere with that ISH. There is no both sides. Be like your daddy, call out wrong when you see it. Never cower to the enemy

    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/821084877877628928

    Reply
    • eliihass says:
      January 18, 2017 at 12:44 am

      This is one more reason why I have no patience for the ‘I wish he had a son’ crowd…

      This is how those sons typically turn out..

      Shallow, opportunistic, lame and sorry…

      P.s:

      On the video of this, there’s a puppetmaster to his right…his shifty eyes keep darting nervously even as he tries to weirdly whisper answers to questions to MLK III …constantly muttering something under his breath..

      And then, there was Omarosa who’s loitering in the background making sure that they give the black opportunists give the buffoon’s desired responses to media questions…her yet to be defined White House job is dependent on how well ‘the blacks’ that show up to be paraded, perform..

      Reply
  16. Liza says:
    January 16, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    My dog just ate my pumpkin bread from Starbucks. Walked away from my desk for a minute and she was on it.

    She is immensely pleased with herself.

    Reply
  17. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 16, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    Well here’s a slap in the face to Donald Trump

    https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/821031837573255169

    Reply
  19. Ametia says:
    January 16, 2017 at 1:41 pm
    Reply
  21. Ametia says:
    January 16, 2017 at 1:38 pm

    Messy Truths about White Trump Voters
    January 11, 2017 • Dr. Terence Fitzgerald

    Van Jones, I would like to personally recognize you for your undertaking with concern to your exploration within the minds and souls of white Trump voters within your recent televised CNN series entitled, “The Messy Truth.” I get the intellectual journey you are on and appreciate your determination. I truly do. Unfortunately, in regard to the often glossed over purview of recent advanced racialized assessments related to the past electoral democratic debauchery, like many brash hired gun commentators on both the left and right who are propagated by the media to perform political illusion for the ill-informed passive thinkers—you are simply wrong. Your attempted psychological stretch to “make nice” and create an alternative narrative for Trump supporters ignores a hard reality that renowned influential intellectuals such Derrick Bell, Joe Feagin, and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva have discussed, researched, and proven time and time again—the dynamics of race are almost always present. The intellectual and scholarly fortitude of these men compels me to keenly point to those you wish to defend as guilty of participating in collaborative racism. Decisions to vote based on issues such as the economy, on the surface seem to have validity. But when looking not only closer with a critical eyes, but also to the results of the 2016 election, Mr. Jones and others have overlooked the dark shading of racism. In a Rolling Stone interview he argues that:

    …progressives think that that all 60 million people who voted for him have signed on to an Alt-Right, white nationalist agenda…a lot of people held their nose and voted for Donald Trump – despite his bigotry, not because of it.

    Thusly, he and his media kinspersons consequently advocate for the construction of “bridges” between progressives and Trump devotees.

    http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2017/01/11/messy-truths-white-trump-voters/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racismreview%2FnYnz+%28racismreview.com%29

    Reply
  22. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 16, 2017 at 1:09 pm

    Black Twitter went in on them for this….

    https://twitter.com/FBI/status/821037660613398529

    Reply
  23. SouthernGirl2 says:
    January 16, 2017 at 12:27 pm

    https://twitter.com/ChadLivengood/status/821057918145622016

    [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/302984015" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

    [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/302984632" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

    Reply
    • Liza says:
      January 16, 2017 at 11:38 am

      So, this happened in the late 70s, maybe around 1980. I was living in southern CA. My boyfriend and I took a trip to San Francisco, did the tourist stuff and decided to go off the beaten path and look around. We stopped at an Asian restaurant for lunch. There were no tourists there, just locals, all of them folks of Asian descent. So we sit down in a booth and wait for service. We’re ready for some authentic food. After awhile, we realized there would be no service. I just watched as locals came in and got served while we were totally ignored.

      So this is what it’s like I thought. I went up to the counter and told the waitress we would leave, but could we get coffee to go. She said okay.

      Reply
      • SouthernGirl2 says:
        January 16, 2017 at 12:36 pm

        Just okay? Wow!

        Reply
      • Liza says:
        January 16, 2017 at 1:39 pm

        She was an older white woman, as I recall, the only white person I saw there. I think she felt sorry for us because we were obviously out of towners and didn’t know the policy.

        It was strange, totally unexpected. I had a several Asian friends in southern CA, people I worked with. I remember when they first met me, they kind of profiled me because of where I was from and my southern accent. I didn’t even know I had a southern accent, to be honest. But they got to know me. They were the ones who educated me in the more subtle forms of racism happening outside the Deep South.

        One of the things I learned really fast is that a lot of people out there do not understand or appreciate the way southern folks kid each other. Well, their loss, but I had to change my ways.

        I’ll tell you something else that has always bothered me. There were several white folks where I worked in CA who profiled me back then and never changed their minds. It took me awhile to figure this out.

        Reply
  31. Liza says:
    January 16, 2017 at 10:35 am

    Now as much as ever…

    Reply
  34. rikyrah says:
    January 16, 2017 at 4:34 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😐😐😐

    Reply

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