Journalism: Where History Goes to Die

by Cliopatria

"I hear GOP folks and Tea Partiers bemoaning the fact that media and Democrats are using the extremes of their movement for ratings and to score points...If that were Martin Luther King's response to media coverage, the South might still be segregated...

"There is of course a deeper question about the limits of strategy. It's possible that if the Tea Partiers cleaned up their ranks--purged the birthers, publicly rebuked people like this guy, banned Hitler signs, loudly rejected any instances of racism--that they simply wouldn't have much of a movement left. Martin Luther King was trying to lead a black community that was demonstrably patriotic, and had, in the main, rejected political violence as a strategy. He could afford to be picky."

-- Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Tea Party's Rank Amateurism, theatlantic.com. March 26, 2010.

"I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency...The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence...

"I have tried to stand between these two forces...I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood...

"Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro...So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides --and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail. April 16, 1963.

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Jonathan Dresner - 3/29/2010

I don't suppose that has something to do with the news outlets they listen to, does it? Nah, probably not.

Chris Bray - 3/29/2010

I would believe that the libertarian strains were authentic if the Tea Party protestors had been really angry about telecomm immunity, or Elena Kagan's filing an amicus brief for a group the executive branch regards as extremist is terrorism argument before the Supreme Court. They don't seem to notice that stuff particularly much.

Chris Bray - 3/29/2010

Fixed it in the post -- thanks for pointing it out.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/29/2010

I suspect that you're right about the TEA party folks, though I think you're understating the libertarian strains. You're right about Coates, as well, and since his "beat" at the Atlantic is The African-American Viewpoint, particularly disappointing.

David Silbey - 3/28/2010

It's Coates, I believe.

Chris Bray - 3/28/2010

Adding that I think Coats has done a version of the Fox News version of MLK, here -- one hundred percent middle-class respectability and non-violence, a saintly figure of perfect restraint who was widely admired at the time for his middle-of-the-road, within-the-system politics.

Coats says that King could "afford to be picky" -- he could afford to repudiate extremists and to evict the violent from his movement. But that's not what he did at all, and I think the Letter from Birmingham Jail shows that really nicely. The fascinating and exciting thing about MLK is that he was *much* more radical than we mostly choose to remember.

Chris Bray - 3/28/2010

I don't think the Tea Party is just like the Civil Rights Movement, and I'm sorry I gave that impression -- I just think Coats has really butchered the Civil Rights Movement, here, and in a very common and deeply unfortunate way.

I've said this before, but I think the Tea Party isn't what it says it is. I think we'll probably see it reveal its right-wing statism over time -- we're for limited government, and also waterboarding and mass surveillance of phone communication and let's bomb something. The presence of people like Tom Tancredo is a bad, bad sign.

But we'll see. In the meantime, they've driven a lot of establishment liberals crazy, and crazy enough to mangle the history they want to use for comparisons.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/28/2010

All due respect, Chris, but if you're going to make the historical analogy, you better be able to do more than that. Who's the thoughtful movement leader, and where's the moderate but motivated center of the movement?

If the TEA Party folks and kamikaze pilots and Palinites are the unruly expression of non-moderation (the Black Muslims of economic freedom?) then the Paulistas are the core movement with which we will have to deal in order to avoid massive strife? (Surely not the Republican Party mainstream: they're no better on these issues than the mainstream parties which supported segregation in the '50s.) Are the persecuted (and I use that term loosely) Hayekians going to play the role of Gandhi-esque intellectuals, or is Rand's Galt going to be the inspiration for civil disobedience?

Put some cards on the table, Chris.