Black History Month Contraries

By Mary Grabar, Posted February 8, 2013:

This first appeared here.  I wish to thank Mary for allowing me to publish her work.  RK

A couple weeks ago Dissident Prof offered thoughts on inaugural poems, including Maya Angelou's "The Pulse of Morning." The same poet is now host of a series of Black History month celebrations via (thank you, taxpayers) Public Broadcasting and sponsored by AT&T (gotta love those "public/private partnerships!"). The shame is not so much who is included--they are mostly entertainers--but who is excluded.  As is common, there is no representation of black conservatives. 

On our campuses, those from the far-left tend to be speakers for Black History Month, like Van Jones at Old Dominion and Toure at St. Louis University (topic: "How Racism Functions Today and Ways to Deal with It to Get Success").  (Toure recently thanked God for abortion.)  Scheduled for the Holmes-Hunter lecture at the University of Georgia was Al Roker, co-host of the Today Show, who has made news most recently for his on-air kiss with another man.

Where are the conservatives?

Not at Georgia Public Broadcasting's GPB Education, where teachers are greeted with prominent photos of Malcolm X and Barack Obama.  The suggested television segment, Finding Your Roots, features two black political leaders, "from different generations and opposite backgrounds"--but from the same party!  They are Newark mayor Corey Booker and Georgia Congressman John Lewis.  

The AT&T sponsored program, hosted by Angelou, focuses on background stories too. "Telling Our Stories," we are told "features five celebrated guests, Kofi Annan, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Regina Taylor and Oprah Winfrey [big-time promoter of Barack Obama in 2008] sharing candid stories about their paths to achievement and their place in the annals of black history."

Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, "recalls the unexpected accolade of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize & reflects on a life working toward peace and justice," says Maya Angelou's public radio site.  No mention is made of the scandalous Oil-for-Food Program during his tenure at the UN.  (Don't just do a Google search on Kofi Annan, cause it may take several pages of sites that laud his work on behalf of "peace and justice" before you reach the one at Discover the Networks that dares to mention this unsavory history.)

\Kofi Annan

One would think that AT&T could have come up with a black (American) intellectual, like Thomas Sowell.  But then again Sowell criticizes Kofi Annan. 

Black History Month comes of course on the heels of the Martin Luther King holiday, now made into a day of national service, supported by such federal programs as Americorps--the opposite of truly volunteer programs. 

Conservative sites, even, often miss the prominent black conservatives.  They focus on MLK.

At The College Fix, Nathan Harden, looking much like one of the marchers from the era of Martin Luther King, Jr., prompted by a post at CNN, ponders whether King was a conservative:

I don’t think King would fit perfectly today into either mainstream party when it comes to race issues. The fact is, mainstream liberals have moved away from King’s most enduring principle–that we should assess the individual without regard to skin color. Meanwhile, mainstream conservatives have moved toward him in several important areas–realizing once and for all that states’ rights are secondary to natural rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Was Martin Luther King a conservative?

Maybe that’s the wrong question.

A better one would be this: Are today’s conservatives more like King?

The answer is, yes.

King did say that Americans should be judged on the content of their character, an idea that is conservative.  Yet, he was no conservative.  In his many speeches he called for a redistribution of wealth.  After he had succeeded in pressuring formerly segregationist Democrats to sign onto civil rights legislation, he continued to agitate to end the war in Vietnam and to end poverty.  King's aims went far beyond racial equality.  He had a socialist agenda, was trained at the Highlander School, and associated with individuals with communist ties. 

Conservatives would like to think that King was on their side, but they should read this account of Rosa Parks, even if it does come from the left.  Charles Blow writes about a new book that reveals Parks's radicalism and the strategic training that went into that famous refusal to give up her seat on a bus. 

Forgotten (or deliberately disappeared?) are the black conservatives who criticized King's strategies and socialist policies.

Among the voices quashed is that of George S. Schuyler. In the tradition of Schuyler today are Allen West, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Star Parker....

So why is AT&T not supporting a program for them on public broadcasting? 

Readers may remember the report on PBS's educational programs that Tina Trent and I wrote for Accuracy in Media.  School children are given a very biased history of the civil rights movement, with even the Black Panthers' violent history whitewashed (so to speak). 

We are given a New Left version of black history. 

The New Leftists gained power in academia, the media, and politics (think Bill Ayers, Wade Rathke, Hillary Clinton).  They decide which black figures will be celebrated during Black History Month.  It's too bad that these figures aren't very diverse.