Glenn Beck in regards to MLK's philosophy: 'I'll talk to Alveda . . .'

Regardless of what is said about Glenn Beck's nonsense today (a blogging friend of mine called it "Whitestock"), the following exchange between he and XM radio with African-American host Joe Madison needs to be remembered.

From ThinkProgress comes the conversation in which the two were talking about Beck's comments accusing President Obama of being a racist. Then the conversation went on an interesting tangent:

MADISON: He’s not a racist?

BECK: What is he? [...] I’ve talked about this at length, and so I’m going to rehash it all. I’ve already said stupid comment, off the top of head. And I said just the other day, an ignorant comment. Now that I really understand how he grew up, where he grew up, what his influences were — it’s more of a liberation theology, a kind of attitude he has. That I immediately interpreted — because I didn’t understand him. His attitude is more of, like Bill Ayers — that America is an oppressor. And I just disagree with that.
[...]

MADISON: You do not believe President Obama is a racist?

BECK: I’ve said this before.

MADISON: A mistake? Was that a mistake?

BECK: Absolutely it was. And I’ve said that before. I misunderstood — this I just said the other day — I misunderstood his philosophy and his theology, which is liberation theology.

MADISON: Which was King’s philosophy. Big time.

BECK: Didn’t know that. I’ll talk to Alveda today about it.

MADISON: Oh, talk to his father. You know who you should talk to? Talk to Walter Faunteroy. Rev. Walter Faunteroy, who grew up with King. That was his philosophy — it was the theological philosophy of social justice.

BECK: Right. I am not a fan of social justice.

MADISON: That’s where we really part. I’m a big fan of social justice.

And THAT, my friends is what we should remember about today's rally. Beck, the man who has placed himself in the footsteps of King, who has implied that he and others like him will "reclaim" the civil rights movement doesn't know a damn thing about King's philosophy.

Beck is so clueless that in order to learn more about King, he is consulting a woman who has no knowledge of anything regarding MLK, who wasn't even present at the 1963 March on Washington, whose link to MLK doesn't lie in working with him, marching with him, or consulting with him, but that only that she is his niece.

And that, my friends is the essence of Glenn Beck's hucksterism. I can't wait to see if and how he can spin his way out of this one.

Related posts:

Alveda's scheme? Reap off of MLK's dream

Alveda King's attempted claiming of the MLK legacy is sad

Alveda's scheme? Reap off of MLK's dream

In regards to Glenn Beck's rally today, one twitter post stands out in my mind (and I am printing it exactly as it is spelled):

To everyone calling the #glennbeck #828 event a gathering of KKK raciest: are you calling Alveda King, niece of MLK, a raciest as well?

The twitter post proves the point of a post I wrote yesterday. Alveda King is at Beck's rally as a token, a bastardization of King's legacy manipulated to blunt appropriate questions of the racial motives of Beck and many of the people attending today's rally.

And a recent expose by Daniel Denvir of Salon magazine exposes Alveda King's history of not only desecrating the King name for her own purposes but also a few more revelations:

She is the head of an organization, King for Life, which has a defunct website and allegedly one staff member.

Her press literature calls her a "doctor," but her degree is merely honorary from St. Anselm College, a Catholic school in Manchester, N.H. What's worse, Alveda can't remember can't recall why she was awarded this degree:

She sued Paramount Pictures, charging that Eddie Murphy stole her idea to make his movie Coming To America. Needless to say, she lost the case.

She was vocal against an AIDS Hospice in her neighborhood.

And needless to say, her relationship with MLK's widow, Coretta Scott King hasn't been all that cordial:

In 1994, she released a letter condemning Coretta Scott King’s support for abortion and gay rights, saying it would bring "curses on your house and your people ... cursing, vexation, rebuke in all that you put your hand to, sickness will come to you and your house, your bloodline will be cut off."

To call Alveda King a sellout would be totally missing the point. I think she is worse than a sellout. She is a woman with a product (i.e. the King name) who is willing to trade it for prominence and spotlight even if it's with those who stand against what MLK stood for.

But what she is offering is something that should never be sold because you can't put a price tag on the struggle for equality against the forces of oppression.

And MLK's legacy will never be soiled by anything, especially a greedy relative who has done nothing to earn that legacy than to walk around talking about how "she has his blood in her veins."

So I say let Alveda reap the benefits of getting her name out there on the backs of those who really did suffer and die for equality.

It's her soul she is going to have to give an account for. That is if she has one after all of that spotlight.

Related post:

Alveda King's attempted claiming of the MLK legacy is sad

Know Your LGBT History - Gay TV Now

I'm probably only gay man in America who is not aware of this excellent show by MediaWeek Video.


Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

Know Your LGBT History - Stewardess School

Know Your LGBT History - Up the Academy

Know Your LGBT History - Don't be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood

Know Your LGBT History - A Different Story

Know Your LGBT History - Victim

Know Your LGBT History - The Color Purple

Know Your LGBT History - Making Love

Know Your LGBT History - A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

Know Your LGBT History - Noah's Arc

Know Your LGBT History - Ode to Billy Joe

Know Your LGBT History - Adorable Adrian Adonis

Know Your LGBT History - The Night Strangler

Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family

Know Your LGBT History - Tongues Untied

Know Your LGBT History - The Celluloid Closet

Know Your LGBT History - Querelle

Know Your LGBT History - Theatre of Blood

Know Your LGBT History - Strange Fruit

Know Your LGBT History - Designing Women

Know Your LGBT History - The Children's Hour

Know Your LGBT History - Sylvester

Know Your LGBT History - Once Bitten

Know Your LGBT History - The Boys in the Band

Know Your LGBT History - Christopher Morley, the crossdressing assassin

Know Your LGBT History - Midnight Cowboy

Know Your LGBT History - Dracula's Daughter

Know Your LGBT History - Blacula

Know Your LGBT History - 3 Strikes

Know Your LGBT History - Paris Is Burning

Know Your LGBT History - The Women

Know your LGBT History - Soul Plane

Know Your LGBT History - The Player's Club

Special Know Your LGBT History - Fame

Know Your LGBT History - Welcome Home, Bobby

Know Your LGBT History - Barney Miller

Know your lgbt history - The Jerry Springer Show

Know your lgbt history - Martin Lawrence and that 'gay guy' on his show

Know your lgbt history - The Ricki Lake Show

Know your lgbt history - Which Way Is Up

Know your lgbt history - Gays in Primetime Soaps

Know your lgbt history - Boys Beware

Know your lgbt history - The Boondocks

Know your lgbt history - Mannequin

Know your lgbt history - The Warriors

Know Your LGBT History - New York Undercover

Know Your LGBT History - Low Down Dirty Shame

Know Your LGBT History - Fortune and Men's Eyes

Know your lgbt history - California Suite

Know your lgbt history - Taxi (Elaine's Strange Triangle)

Know your lgbt history - Come Back Charleston Blue

Know your lgbt history - James Bond goes gay

Know your lgbt history - Windows

Know your lgbt history - To Wong Foo and Priscilla

Know your lgbt history - Blazing Saddles

Know your lgbt history - Sanford and Son

Know your lgbt history - In Living Color

Know your lgbt history - Cleopatra Jones and her lesbian drug lords

Know your lgbt history - Norman, Is That You?

Know your lgbt history - The 'Exotic' Adrian Street

Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys

Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy

Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George

Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda

'Know your lgbt history - Cruising

Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones

Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up

Know your lgbt history - Fright Night

Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil

The Jeffersons and the transgender community  

The Daily Show exposes Glenn Beck's phony rally and other Friday midday news briefs

Jon Stewart nails Glenn Beck's phony 8/28 rally:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Have a Scheme
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

NYT: Gay Bashing Losing Appeal for GOP - It was just a matter of time. I wonder if the tea baggers will learn what the religious right is discovering. If I were them, I would get the GOP to put the money on the dresser before leaving.

Ugandan MP David Bahati Wants to ‘Kill Every Gay Person’ - Surprisng NO ONE of course.

Power Ranger David Yost: I'm Gay - David Yost, the Blue Power Ranger from The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, has come out. Damn my gay ray keeps missing Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Report: LGBT Youth and Smoking - Yes it's linked to stress and homophobia - a thing that the religious right will omit when they distort the data.

Right-wing attack on Elizabeth Hasselbeck is the essence of hypocrisy

On the heels of her pitiful attempt to connect same-sex marriage to the plight of black students, Concerned Women for America's Janice Crouse has a new target for her ramblings - The View's Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

Hasselbeck's recent revelation that she supports gay marriage didn't exactly make Crouse a fan of hers. And Crouse manages to a dig at Miley Cyrus and Julie Andrews at the same time she goes after Hasselbeck:

"You can go all the way back to Julie Andrews up to [today] to Miley Cyrus," Crouse remarks. "You have all these people who win a reputation for being conservative and straight down the line in terms of morals and being the kind of person that mainstream America admires -- and then when they get famous, they have to back away from it and say 'Oh, that's not who I really am'...and Elisabeth Hasselbeck is just following in those footsteps."

. . . In the same Fancast article, Hasselbeck says she considers herself more of a federalist than a conservative "always trying to mandate the way to live."

"That's one of the things that I think characterizes the left," states Crouse. "They don't want there to be any authorities [or] boundaries or any demands on their own opinions.

"They want to be able to go in any direction they want to go, and for their word and their stances [and] their opinions to be the final thing -- and they've set up their own intellect as the ultimate authority rather than the Word of God, rather than the principles of conservatism."

Crouse's silly nonsense would be more credible if she, at the time she was making her comments, pointed out just who gave her the right to decide the parameters of morality and conservatism.  For a woman who makes her money on the illogical talking point that folks like her are constantly forced to change their opinion to conform to lgbt acceptance, Crouse's attack on Hasselbeck is high hypocritical.

Hypocritical, that is, to the normal person. But for Crouse, it's just another way to make a trip to the bank.

Alveda King's attempted claiming of the MLK legacy is sad

Many black leaders oppose the comparisons between the African-American civil rights movement and the gay rights movement. But few are as vehemently opposed to the comparison as Martin Luther King Jr's niece, Alveda King.

However, as her recent behavior demonstrates, it could be that Alveda King doesn't like the so-called appropriation of the black civil rights movement because it hones in on her action.

Witness her comments in defense of her joining Glenn Beck's 8-28 rally which will be held 47 years to the date of the 1963 March on Washington which featured Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech:

"It is absolutely ludicrous that abortion supporters would accuse a blood relative of Dr. King of hijacking the King legacy. Uncle Martin and my father, Rev. A. D. King were blood brothers. How can I hijack something that belongs to me? I am an heir to the King Family legacy."

Alveda King's statements in this press release (which is titled Pro-Abortion Blacks Attack Heir to King Legacy) isn't the first time she claimed that "blood" entitles her to be an "heir to the King legacy."

Last month, during an anti-gay marriage rally, she said pretty much the same thing during a verbal attack on her late aunt, Coretta Scott King. Her exact words then were:

She (Coretta) was married to him (Martin Luther King, Jr.). I've got his DNA. She doesn't.

Alveda King's constant yammering that the "King blood flows through her veins" reminds me of Saturday Night Live comedian Tracy Morgan's hilarious send-up of Star Jones on The View in which he would constantly pepper the conversations in various skits with assurances that his character was a lawyer in an effort to lampoon questions of Jones's relevancy.

King would be equally funny except for the fact she has made a career out of being MLK's niece. What she has to say is not important. No one cares. It's the symbol of MLK that's more important. This is something she knows and is not ashamed of.

Why care when there is so much spotlight to be grabbed?

And in this particular case, i.e. Beck's rally, Alveda King is soiling the King name and legacy by aligning it with someone who, if he had been around during King's time, would be one of the first to denigrate him with as much ease as he is now denigrating what King stood for.

I don't think the King legacy has anything to do with blackboards, conspiracy theories, and charlatans who can cry crocodile tears at the drop of a hat.

And Alveda's chirpings about her sharing the "King blood" is like me using an alleged familial relationship to a rock star to demand a recording contract even though I can't carry a tune.

MLK's legacy should never be used like a commodity  nor should it be determined by blood relationships. MLK's legacy is about truth, integrity, and most of all, love.

So while the King blood does flow through Alveda's veins, she seems to be sorely lacking on the other points. Especially integrity.

Hat tip to People for the American Way.

Ken Mehlman and Glenn Beck for your Thursday midday news briefs

Self-proclaimed civil rights leader Glenn Beck's history of racially charged rhetoric - The so-called inheritor of Dr. King's "Dream" is a circus clown with a large retinue of sheep. Where are these black leaders who bristle at the comparison of the gay rights movement of the black civil rights movement?

Ken Mehlman - the story of the former Republican National Committee chairman who came out (surprising no one) which has played extensively for these past two days on numerous blogs. It's not that I've been ignoring it more than I don't think I can add anything new to the conversation at this time. So with that in mind, I am attaching links to folks who have been deep in this story:

From FMA supporters to FMA scapegoats: Ken schmoozes with a new kind of Advocate

Ken Mehlman Is Still Funding Anti-Gay Politicians

NOM's Brian Brown: 'Mehlman abdicating core Republican beliefs' - and more on the self-outing

Welcome Out, Ken Mehlman

Mehlman '05: Activist judges 'remov[ed] a pivotal decision from the hands of voters'

On Mehlman, I'm more interested in equality than revenge