Infinite Forgettery

So let me get this part out of the way:  I don't read Daily Kos.

(Yeah, you say, but what else is new?  You do Blogroll Amnesty Day.  You deliberately link to not-so-well-known writers who happen to write rings around most of the New York Times overpaid opinion floggers.  Why would you bother with the Great Orange Satan?  And is that Fleetwood Mac in the background?)

Well, I didn't read it even back in the day.  That is just the sort of dork I am.  I respect it as a blog, but it's huge and generates its own gravity.  And I'm not sure any good writer has come from there since the late Steve Gilliard.

I don't read Eschaton, either, unless I get pointed at something specific (although there was the time somebody pointed me at the "Total Eclipse of the Heart Literal Version," which caused Deth by Laphter--and which was several pages away two days later).

All that to explain that delux_vivens at Dreamwidth linked to this essay by HamdenRice -- at Daily Kos.

...[T]here were dueling diaries over the weekend about Dr. King's legacy, and there is a diary up now (not on the rec list but on the recent list) entitled, "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream Not Yet Realized." I'm sure the diarist means well as did the others. But what most people who reference Dr. King seem not to know is how Dr. King actually changed the subjective experience of life in the United States for African Americans. And yeah, I said for African Americans, not for Americans, because his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer. That's why some of us who are African Americans get a bit possessive about his legacy. Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, despite what our civil religion tells us, is not color blind. [Emphasis in original.]

Now. I have to say that this article grabbed me by the throat, largely because of the situations he later describes (and the fact that many of those conservatives/libertarians out there would like very much to return to this state of affairs), but mostly because --

Well, a lot of the struggle has been ... forgotten.

Yes.  Good Old American Historical Amnesia.  The struggle is dusty footage and old folks now.  A candidate for anything other than dog-catcher who can say "Oh, I would repeal that," and remain unpelted by rotten tomatoes exists.

Of course only the feelgood parts remain.

NB:  I am going to post this, a year later (originally written in September, 2011), but I still think it needs research and work.  The "feelgood parts remaining" is a human thing.  We are not angels, and we're actually closer to the animals than we'd like to think.  The "Drafts" folder is now largely cleared out.