Discriminations

The New York Times has a front page article today, dateline Selma, Ala., “Recalling Civil Rights, Democrats Seek Black Votes.”

The chief rivals will be here [Selma] on Sunday when the Clintons and Mr. Obama commemorate the 42nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when hundreds of activists ... crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

There is nothing either surprising or wrong about Democratic candidates courting black voters, who are “a crucial component of the Democratic electorate.” But there is something of an irony (naturally unseen in the NYT article) about the current intense focus on blackness by Democrats — Is Obama black enough? Is he too black? Will he win black primary voters away from Mrs. Clinton or drive millions of presumptively racist election voters away from the Democrats?

The irony? Gathering in Selma to celebrate one of the milestone events in the long march to promote civil rights, the Democrats are emphasizing race while commemorating a movement and a moment whose compelling vision was to minimize or even eliminate the salience of race in American life.

In one of his most compelling speeches, “Our God Is Marching On!” (but better known as his “How Long? Not Long!” speech), delivered on March 25, 1965, from the steps of the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery to a crowd of 25,000 people who had gathered there to celebrate the end of the march from Selma, Rev. Martin Luther King stated:

We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.

This society cannot, and in fact should not, “live with its conscience” as long as it tolerates political and legal distinctions based on race. Someone should point that out to the Democrats, if they’re not too busy “recalling civil rights” to listen.