The Republicans’ allergy to the 50th anniversary of the I Have a Dream speech commemoration, and particularly to the unreconstructed liberals who spoke at the commemoration, really is quite telling. It shows just how far the party has moved away from its 1960’s incarnation. In some abstract way, mainstream Republicans wanted to honor Dr. King’s most magnificent speech, even to the point of falsely claiming King as a member of their party. But, confronted with people who sounded a lot like the speakers who appeared that day fifty years ago, they felt that the whole thing was being politicized. Well, if you don’t like the politics of the Civil Rights Era and it’s leaders and proponents, then why commemorate them? Why not condemn them?
But to ask people to take the politics of social justice out of the commemoration is to try to appropriate to yourself something that doesn’t belong to you.
