It should still be on the same day, but the focus should be more on all of those who fought for civil rights, not just the Reverend. There are a lot of important men in American history, but only one gets a big national holiday. The holiday should celebrate an ideal not a man. I'm sure he would like it that way better anyway.
No. MLK Day should be about the man, MLK. So much was lost. MLK was murdered in April 1968. He had stated that the Vietnam War was "simply Genocide". After April 1968, 175,000 American soldiers died in combat in Vietnam, from their wounds in hospitals, in outpatient care, and without care. Millions of South East Asians died to free their countries from White imperialism. What percentage of those lives could have been saved had MLK lived is pure speculation, but it would have been plenty I'm sure of.
MLK was a great man who died for his cause and would have accomplished much more had he lived, but there were thousands of others who were killed fighting for equal rights. I think MLK would agree that the day belongs to everyone, not just him.
You know, you're right. After all, Washington's Birthday has become President's Day.
Columbus Day is...well, it's still Columbus Day.
Christmas could be.....Redeemer's Day? Crucified People's Day? Spirituality Day? Yeah, I like that last one.
There's only one American holiday dedicated to a nonwhite person, so we might as well make it generic.
Well, we should probably get rid of Columbus Day. I don't think Mexico has a Cortes Day or Peru has a Pizarro Day.
Maybe we should honor the first European to set foot in North America and change it to Leif Ericson day.
But THIS is why we need MLK day (you can always depend on Fox News to come through with garbage like this on their front page):
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/16/greeley-school-board-member-blasts-mlk-day/
And if that doesn't do it for you, watch "Mississippi Burining."
TCB wrote:
Well, we should probably get rid of Columbus Day. I don't think Mexico has a Cortes Day or Peru has a Pizarro Day.
I have never understood our celebration of Columbus Day or America's general reverence to Columbus. Now that his atrocities are common knowledge, maybe we should stop pretending that he is a hero.
Civil Rights Day - sounds good.
I also don't like the idea of attributing a holiday to a single person.
Independence Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Civil Rights Day...
That would keep a patriotic theme going.
Maybe Columbus Day could become New World Day or Discovery Day or It's not exactly India But We Found Some Different Looking People And We can Settle in This New Territory Day.
There is a nice article in today's Boulder Daily Camera - privileged and educated white woman, teaches other privileged and educated white people about MLK and racism in the privileged and educated white washed city of Boulder, Colorado, where only brown people work in the kitchens and do manual labor. Meanwhile, if there were no sports teams at C.U. there would be no black people in Boulder.
What a Loss wrote:
No. MLK Day should be about the man, MLK. So much was lost. MLK was murdered in April 1968. He had stated that the Vietnam War was "simply Genocide". After April 1968, 175,000 American soldiers died in combat in Vietnam, from their wounds in hospitals, in outpatient care, and without care. Millions of South East Asians died to free their countries from White imperialism. What percentage of those lives could have been saved had MLK lived is pure speculation, but it would have been plenty I'm sure of.
That's a fun fact. Except for the fact that only 60K American Soldiers died or were MIA in Vietnam Only 153K wounded that even required Hospitalization. And of the approximately 2 million Vietnamese that died, nearly 640,000 were South Vietnamese that were killed while the North consolidated power after the "white imperialists" left. Also there are the 2.4 million Cambodians that were killed by the Khmer Rouge cambodian government, that seized power with Vietnamese support.
I agree that it should be Civil Rights Day. MLK was just a man, and a flawed one at that. I have always been against forms of Celebrity, especially when it takes away from something worthy, like the idea of Civil Rights. MLK was just a cog, an important one, but just a piece of the whole. And as a MAN, definitely not someone to be worshiped.
agree that it should be Civil Rights Day. MLK was just a man, and a flawed one at that
Read more:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3876687#ixzz1BGg1T1fN
Buy your shoes from LetsRun and save 20% everday
CAN YOU PLEASE IDENTIFY A HUMAN BEING THAT ISNT FLAWED?
Nixon would have dragged out the war a few more years just to piss MLK off. Whoa, except for Watergate would have curtailed that....
Columbus Day = Contagion Day for the smallpox, cholera, diptheria, scarlet fever, influenza, etc. that the Mediterraneos brought to the New World.
About 4 times as many Americans died after being shipped out of Vietnam. The same is true for those Americans who were Iraq and Afghan militants. The Pentagon is notorious for lying to the American people.
Yeah I'd love to see actual statistics on that. Considering that now a lot of the numbers bandied about right after the war have been proven false in the last 15 years or so (for example the suicides of 50,000-100,000 vets have been shown to be fewer than 10,000, and the "walking army of 700,000 homeless vets [only 2.4 million served in vietnam] has been shown to be false, as the unemployment numbers for vietnam vets was actually LESS than for the general public)
Stop lying. 5 Million Americans served in Vietnam.
It's MLK day and not Civil Rights day. MLK civilized White Racist America. The others followed him, Black and White. After MLK declared opposition to LBJ's Vietnam War the entire US turned against LBJ. MLK was the spiritial leader of Black and White America during the 1960s.
MLK is considered the greatest person that America has ever produced.
The KKK dominate the GOP and Tea Party they want to tear down Civil Rights and freedom in America. Make sure you tell your kids and friends to oppose the GOP, Tea Party, and KKK candidates.
Annette Funicello wrote:
The KKK dominate the GOP and Tea Party they want to tear down Civil Rights and freedom in America. Make sure you tell your kids and friends to oppose the GOP, Tea Party, and KKK candidates.
I don't have a horse in this race, so feel I can respond with some objectivity here (granting that the post was a troll effort):
1) The KKK is a negligible force in the US, with (probably) fewer than 10,000 members, and does not "dominate" much of anything these days. A decent summary is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan#Contemporary_Klan:_1970s.E2.80.93presentThis article also lists dozens of useful references, for those interested in digging deeper.
2) While I find the Tea Party phenomenon somewhat interesting and amusing (and, at the same time, completely boring--is that possible?), I really think that people err when they simply write all of these folks off as racist idiots. I suspect that this rather strange movement is striking a real chord with a fair number of people, and that it's simply inaccurate to chalk it all up to racism.
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In any case, for the last year or more (under different monikers, no doubt), I've predicted that BHO will be re-elected easily. I've seen nothing to change that view: the GOP doesn't seem to have *any* viable national candidates.
Fine by me: a fairly weak presidency, coupled with a divided Congress, is probably a good situation overall for American liberties and civil rights.
The Tea Party showed it's true colors when Palin used the term 'Blood Libel' to trash Giffords, a liberal Jew. Now there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Palin is a KKK member.
I would be content with renaming Columbus day. I like the sound of New World Day, Discovery Day too. I'm afraid of the Fox News types who would stand in the way just because they think it would be too PC to rename Columbus day or who would just like to stick it to liberals who hate glorifying a mass murderer. I would be happy renaming it America Day, but Discovery Day has a nice ring to it and can also be tied to science education.