This week, we’ve had to watch a string of liberals appropriate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. to push the Left’s agenda of the moment. Sadly, one of the most egregious offenders is Martin Luther King III, who penned an extremely disappointing op-ed for the Washington Post. We’re supposed to think that if Dr. King were alive today, his top priorities would be repealing Stand Your Ground laws and pushing for a ban on assault weapons. Here’s why:
The date of the ’63 march, Aug. 28, was chosen to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the brutal slaying of 14-year-old Emmett Till. The ensuing outcry helped to awaken a new era of protest against racial injustice. A half-century later, however, African American youth still have good reason to fear racially motivated violence.
When an unarmed 17-year-old walking home with Skittles can be brutally slain by an armed man — a man who had been told by police to leave the boy alone — and that man is acquitted of all charges, something is very wrong. The so-called “stand your ground” and “stop-and-frisk” laws that have been enacted in various states in recent years disproportionately abuse people of color.
These ill-considered laws are a serious threat to the freedom and safety of all Americans. The appalling racial injustice inherent in the Trayvon Martin tragedy reminds us that there is still much to do.
You know what I don’t recall Martin Luther King Jr. doing in his mighty history-changing speeches? Lying.
I hope he’d be appalled by this sort of lazy B.S. pouring from his son, and properly nauseated by this dreary effort to link Trayvon Martin to Emmett Till. I think he’s also encourage a healthier degree of respect for verdicts handed down in a fair court of law. And he might have a word to say about how many people of color have been saved by Stand Your Ground laws, which – for the umpteenth time – had nothing to do with George Zimmerman’s legal defense.