America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure. On the anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington he will stand in the shadows of giants — Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who do you think is more representative of this nation?
Consider a brief sampling of their rhetoric.
Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
King: “Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.”
Beck: “I think the president is a racist.”
Washington was on edge on the morning of Aug. 28, 1963. The day was sunny and very warm and N-groes, as we were called in those days, were coming into town by the tens of thousands. The sale of liquor was banned. Troops stood by to restore order if matters got out of control. President John F. Kennedy waited anxiously in the White House to see how the day would unfold.
It unfolded splendidly. The crowd for the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” grew to some 250,000. Nearly a quarter of the marchers were white. They gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where they were enthralled by the singing of Mahalia Jackson and Joan Baez. The march was all about inclusion and the day seemed to swell with an extraordinary sense of camaraderie and good feeling.
The climax, of course, was Dr. King’s transcendent "I Have A Dream" speech. Jerald Podair, a professor of American studies at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, has called Aug. 28, 1963, “the most important single day in civil rights history.” This is the historical legacy that Glenn Beck, a small man with a mean message, has chosen to tread upon with his cynical rally on Saturday at that very same Lincoln Memorial.
Beck is a provocateur who likes to play with matches in the tinderbox of racial and ethnic confrontation. He seems oblivious to the real danger of his execrable behavior. He famously described President Obama as a man “who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
He is an integral part of the vicious effort by the Tea Party and other elements of the right wing to portray Mr. Obama as somehow alien, a strange figure who is separate and apart from — outside of — ordinary American life. As the watchdog group Media Matters for America has noted, Beck said of the president, “He chose to use the name, Barack, for a reason, to identify not with America — you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify, with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?”
Facts and reality mean nothing to Beck. And there is no road too low for him to slither upon. The Southern Poverty Law Center tells us that in a twist on the civil rights movement, Beck said on the air that he “wouldn’t be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and fire hoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us go to jail — just like Martin Luther King did — on trumped-up charges. Tough times are coming.”
He makes you want to take a shower.
In Beck’s view, President Obama is driven by a desire to settle “old racial scores” and his ultimate goal is “reparations” for black Americans. Abe Lincoln and Dr. King could only look on aghast at this clown.
Beck has been advertising his rally as nonpolitical, but its main speaker is Sarah Palin. She had her own low moment recently as a racial provocateur, publicly voicing her support for Laura Schlessinger, radio’s “Dr. Laura,” who went out of her way to humiliate a black caller by continuously using the n-word to make a point, even after the caller had made it clear that she was offended.
Palin’s advice to Schlessinger: “Don’t retreat — reload.”
There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.
But I worry about the potential for violence that grows out of unrestrained, hostile bombast. We’ve seen it so often. A little more than two weeks after the 1963 March on Washington, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan and four young black girls were killed. And three months after the march, Jack Kennedy was assassinated.
My sincere advice to Beck, Palin and their followers is chill, baby, chill.
Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
King: “Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.”
Beck: “I think the president is a racist.”
Washington was on edge on the morning of Aug. 28, 1963. The day was sunny and very warm and N-groes, as we were called in those days, were coming into town by the tens of thousands. The sale of liquor was banned. Troops stood by to restore order if matters got out of control. President John F. Kennedy waited anxiously in the White House to see how the day would unfold.
It unfolded splendidly. The crowd for the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” grew to some 250,000. Nearly a quarter of the marchers were white. They gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where they were enthralled by the singing of Mahalia Jackson and Joan Baez. The march was all about inclusion and the day seemed to swell with an extraordinary sense of camaraderie and good feeling.
The climax, of course, was Dr. King’s transcendent "I Have A Dream" speech. Jerald Podair, a professor of American studies at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, has called Aug. 28, 1963, “the most important single day in civil rights history.” This is the historical legacy that Glenn Beck, a small man with a mean message, has chosen to tread upon with his cynical rally on Saturday at that very same Lincoln Memorial.
Beck is a provocateur who likes to play with matches in the tinderbox of racial and ethnic confrontation. He seems oblivious to the real danger of his execrable behavior. He famously described President Obama as a man “who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
He is an integral part of the vicious effort by the Tea Party and other elements of the right wing to portray Mr. Obama as somehow alien, a strange figure who is separate and apart from — outside of — ordinary American life. As the watchdog group Media Matters for America has noted, Beck said of the president, “He chose to use the name, Barack, for a reason, to identify not with America — you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify, with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?”
Facts and reality mean nothing to Beck. And there is no road too low for him to slither upon. The Southern Poverty Law Center tells us that in a twist on the civil rights movement, Beck said on the air that he “wouldn’t be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and fire hoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us go to jail — just like Martin Luther King did — on trumped-up charges. Tough times are coming.”
He makes you want to take a shower.
In Beck’s view, President Obama is driven by a desire to settle “old racial scores” and his ultimate goal is “reparations” for black Americans. Abe Lincoln and Dr. King could only look on aghast at this clown.
Beck has been advertising his rally as nonpolitical, but its main speaker is Sarah Palin. She had her own low moment recently as a racial provocateur, publicly voicing her support for Laura Schlessinger, radio’s “Dr. Laura,” who went out of her way to humiliate a black caller by continuously using the n-word to make a point, even after the caller had made it clear that she was offended.
Palin’s advice to Schlessinger: “Don’t retreat — reload.”
There is a great deal of hatred and bigotry in this country, but it does not define the country. The daily experience of most Americans is not a bitter experience and for all of our problems we are in a much better place on these matters than we were a half century ago.
But I worry about the potential for violence that grows out of unrestrained, hostile bombast. We’ve seen it so often. A little more than two weeks after the 1963 March on Washington, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan and four young black girls were killed. And three months after the march, Jack Kennedy was assassinated.
My sincere advice to Beck, Palin and their followers is chill, baby, chill.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 28, 2010, on page A19 of the New York edition.
Actually, this is a set up. This is a hit piece on you, Bob. Just like my readers, I loathe you.
See Bob, the reason why Glenn Beck is so big is...you and the rest of the 2+2=5 Mob that calls itself the mainstream media is so small intellectually. You expected We The People to turn into We the Progressiveviks because you snapped your fingers. Here's a hint for you, Bob. We're not Pavlovian dogs that respond to stimuli. We're human beings. We think. We feel. We think Beck is right and the country is on a Bataan Death March towards oblivion. We feel Chairman Obama is the divisive one, not the human cartoon character who plays Six Degrees of Barack Hussein Obama for a living.
Where was your outrage when our Dear Leader called his own grandmother who raised him a "typical white person" ? Why weren't you hacking away on your keyboard when Obama was bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia who, at last check, has a Gestapo-like "morality police" who have women flogged for being out and about without a burqa ? Why weren't you screaming at the top of your lungs when the Failed Messiah made fun of the Special Olympics ? Well, Bob ?
The reason why there is a 9/12 Project, Freedomworks, 8/28 Rally, and the like is the fact that We The People are dissatisfied. Barack Obama is foreign. No, I'm not saying he was born in Kenya, (maybe I am if it annoys you) but he has done his level headed best to change this country from a Constitutional Republic into a European Social Democracy. We don't want the crony capitalism of bailouts for financial institutions and unions. We don't want the rationing of state-run health care. We want the First Amendment exactly as written. No, Bob, we don't want to be forced to green our houses against our will. We like our guns and we're keeping them. Every poll, from Rassmussen to the one Destiny swings on as she "works" her way through college, says the American people don't want a "fundamentally changed" America, we want a restored one.
Bob, we know tough times are coming. I wouldn't be surprised if dogs and hoses are used on the Tea Party. After all, Big Mommy doesn't like her authority being questioned. For example, if I choose to do what I want with my own money and not buy health insurance in 2013, I risk jail time. With a blatant attack on civil liberties like that, why shouldn't I believe Homeland Security agents might do God knows what to quell dissent ?
Bob, we're not racist. We're not violent. We're simply not going to remain silent anymore. We The People are the ones who make this country work. We're the phone sales managers who solve customer service issues. We're the telemarketers who interrupt your dinner. We're the make up artists who give you a spray tan for your night out on the town. We're the 911 operators who take your phone call when your father in law faints in your dining room. We're the delivery drivers, the dispatchers, the overworked waitress with a sick two year-old at home. We're the ones who matter, Bob. Frankly, we're annoyed.
Normally, I'd end this with "God help us all." Today, I don't have to. God did help us with the 8/28 Rally.
