Applying King's legacy

The annual conversation about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s legacy is indeed an odd ritual as a panelist at WNYC’s annual forum at the Brooklyn Museum on Sunday correctly asserted, but self-appointed members, representatives and spokespeople of underrepresented groups who evoke it to advance a particular cause raise some particularly peculiar questions themselves.

Case in point: I came home and found an e-mail in my inbox that announced a handful of white gay activists chanted “Dr. King supported equality for all!” at various locations in Midtown Manhattan and unfurled a poster with the same message inside Grand Central. The same group staged a similar action yesterday afternoon in Union Square. As a skeptical journalist, the obvious question is whether King would have actually supported marriage for gays and lesbians and general LGBT equality.

His widow, Coretta Scott King, and their eldest daughter Yolanda indeed came out in support of nuptials for same-sex couples in the 2000s. Coretta Scott King maintained marriage for gays and lesbians is indeed a civil rights issue; and that her husband’s legacy includes equality for gays and lesbians. Based on these public statements alone, one can obviously conclude King himself would have endorsed the right of same-sex couples to marry. But is it appropriate, however, for a dozen white gay activists to take it upon themselves to publicly proclaim this almost certain reality at various locations throughout Manhattan?

The always brilliant Patricia Williams of Columbia University’s School of Law provided some guidance in her response to Celeste Headlee’s question about other issues for which she thought King would have fought. Their exchange took place within the context of Haiti, but Williams’ answer can be applied to who evokes King’s name, message and legacy and the purpose to which they apply it.

“He’s a very handy sort of authoritative figure for whatever we sort of want him to be,” she said. “I think it’s unfair sometimes to go beyond what he actually said, and I think it’s perhaps a better enterprise to take into account that he spoke words of eternal wisdom, but that’s its really up to us.”

The group of white gay men who gathered around Midtown over the weekend certainly took the “words of eternal wisdom” and applied them to support their message of LGBT equality. King’s own words provide a convenient source of catchy sound bites, feel-good messages and inclusive rhetoric. The visual reality of the white gay men in Midtown and countless others who choose to evoke them, however, often leaves a series of peculiar and even problematic questions in their wake.

Hundreds attend New York vigil for Jorge Steven Lopez and Jason Mattison, Jr.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, City Councilmember-elect Danny Dromm, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation president Jarrett T. Barrios and fashion designer Malan Breton were among the hundreds who attended a vigil on the Christopher Street Pier earlier tonight in honor of Jorge Steven López and Jason Mattison, Jr., on the Christopher Street Pier earlier tonight.

This gathering was one of 20 that took place across the country.

White House hosts so-called Beer Summit

The visage of four men--President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge [Mass.] police officer James Crowley--having a beer on the White House lawn is arguably surreal (or even absurd) depending upon whom you ask. The New York Times even live-blogged the much-anticipated meeting, but its implications almost certainly go far beyond the type of beer each man drank.

The facts that lead up to this meeting are all too known. Crowley arrested Gates outside his Cambridge home earlier this month after a woman reported a possible burglary. Authorities initially charged Gates with disorderly conduct, but the charges were subsequently dropped. And Obama sparked controversy with his assertion at a White House press conference on health care he felt the Cambridge Police Department acted stupidly by arresting Gates.

During what is traditionally a slow news cycle, this story simply keeps on giving. The subsequent brouhaha over the president's comments--and the arrest itself, however, clearly indicate the majority of Americans remain woefully reluctant to have any substantive discussion on race that does not extend beyond inflammatory sound bites or a steady stream talking heads from all political persuasions who want to add their two cents. This country has clearly made significant strides on this issue over the last decades, but Obama's election last November alone was not the long-awaited panacea that miraculously solved the continued scourge of racial injustice. And four men having a beer on the White House lawn alone will not eradicate it either.

Espada calls for marriage vote in the New York State Senate

As this humble journalist and others across the state continue to try to figure out what the hell happened in Albany on Monday afternoon, the probable new president pro
tempore just announced he supports a vote on the bill that would extend marriage to same-sex couples.

Senator Pedro Espada, Jr., [D-Bronx] made the announcement during a speech before his colleagues on the Senate floor. One of the main concerns that emerged out of Monday's nonsense is legislators would not vote on the marriage bill. Presumptive former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith [D-Queens] had repeatedly maintained he did not have enough votes to secure its passage. It remains unclear as to whether this fact has changed, but Espada's pledge to bring the proposed legislation to the floor almost certainly comes as a relief to anxious activists across the state.