Editor,
Amadou Diallo, a young African immigrant, was killed by four New York Police officers in a hail of 41 bullets on Feb. 4, 1999. All the officers were cleared of the charges.
Sean Bell, a young African-American, was killed by five New York Police officers in a hail of 50 bullets on Nov. 25, 2006, the day of his wedding. None of the five police officers have been indicted to this day.
Less well-publicized cases happen around the country. They remain hidden from the public mind, unless a camera happens to catch them.
In the past two presidential elections, millions of African-American voters were silenced with the intended effect of robbing the Democratic candidate of victory. African-Americans also find themselves in prisons and death chambers disproportionately often. The majority live in poverty and are deprived of the fruits of education.
The U.S. has found many ways to console its bad conscience and fend off its sense of guilt. Not only has it silenced and killed African-American leaders to protect itself from criticism, it has also instituted a national holiday for one of the most eloquent and threatening men besides Malcolm X.
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The national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. is designed to make our nation seem morally great. But since its beginning, this country has relied routinely on the principle of violence. The audacity of the preacher of nonviolence had become unbearably threatening to a nation founded, as he put it, on genocide and slavery.
Only now, safely dead, can King be worshipped without the danger of him undermining the legal, political and moral authority of the national leaders. He can even assist these leaders in their war plans. They use him as a moral shield behind which to perpetrate unspeakable crimes.
During the election campaign in 2004, President Bush went to the shrine of King to place a wreath on his grave as a publicity stunt, while African-American protesters from King's congregation were kept at bay at a safe and invisible distance.
King had linked a warmongering America to Nazi Germany's desire for conquest and hegemony. Like the German theologian Dorothee Sîlle, King had come to the realization that Auschwitz was not over with the defeat of Nazi Germany. It continued in the bombing and napalming of millions of Vietnamese. His uncompromising opposition to militarism speaks against the present administration most directly. In the phosphorous-bombing of Fallujah, in the bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq, Auschwitz continues to this day.
One cannot honor a foe of militarism, racism and materialism and at the same time indulge in those vices to advance imperialist policies. As long as this country acts as an imperial superpower that bullies the world in its domestic and international actions, a national holiday in honor of King can be only a fig leaf of shame designed to veil a bad conscience.
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM faculty
