Whenever the Republican Party quotes Martin Luther King Jr. about character versus skin color, there is an odd reaction. It suddenly occurred to me that the net of that reaction is that would be defenders of King against 'co-optation' by the Right launch immediately into the histrionics about the Poor People's Campaign and King's weighing in against the War in Vietnam. So when the Right gets King's message about race correctly, enemies of the Right are quick to move the goalposts - well, they say, King wasn't ultimately about race.
So what was he about? The answer must inevitably be socialism. Which makes credible, some limited degree of McCarthyism against him. Do you see where I'm going here?
If the enemies of the Right must backtrack on their racial premises of King's legacy, they justify the argument long made but never accepted that opposition to him was not singly a racist complaint.
On the other hand, one could more credibly say that King was a pacifist. A turn the other cheek kinda guy. But then that blunts the interpretation of his 'not fearing any man' in his last days signalling some possible alliance with the Black Power movement.
Either complicated way, you simply cannot deny the fact that the American Right is not defined by racism.
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