Time to Retire MLK

Every year on the third Monday of January, most government and business activity in America grinds to a standstill to pay homage to ‘the dreamer’. But maybe it’s time to retire MLK, for the following reasons:

1. MLK is the only American to have an entire national holiday dedicated in his name, after Lincoln and Washington were merged as ‘president’s day’. Although Columbus has a holiday, he was a Spaniard. Maybe it should be renamed ‘civil right’s day’ or ‘humans right’s day’. I don’t think many historians will dispute that Washington was more important than MLK.

2. He was an avowed socialist. Why should we have a national holiday devoted to someone who opposes the values America stands for? The irony here is that, worldwide, socialism and communism in the 20th century is responsible for more deaths and suffering than segregation.

3. He was an inveterate plagiarizer. But we’re not just talking about a few lines here and there (which alone is a fireable offense), but entire passages were appropriated for King’s dissertation. Even his speeches were likely plagiarized. That means his ideas were not even original and we’re celebrating the wrong person.

4. Most Americans, including blacks, don’t care about meaning of the holiday itself, seeing it just as another vacation. While Veteran’s Day, for example, will always be relevant, the civil rights movement is fading from memory. Given the high rate of black-on-white crime, many blacks are obviously not heeding King’s message of non-violent resistance.

5. The ‘dream’ has been fulfilled. Blacks are represented everywhere – in bureaucracies, the courts, in major corporations, and there’s even one as president. Blacks are making millions of dollars in sports and entertainment. There are blacks on the Forbes 400 list.

6. But the achievement gap between blacks and whites has not narrowed. By that metric (and others), the ‘dream’ failed.