The completely tone-deaf Vice President of the United States Mike Pence yesterday quoted the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to defend Donald Trump’s racist efforts to build a wall along the southern border.
Pence was on television on Sunday, just one day before the Martin Luther King federal holiday. In trying to justify spending billions for a nonsensical wall that almost nobody wants, Pence used a quote from King’s most famous public address, the “I Have a Dream” speech he gave at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.
Pence said:
“One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.'”
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Then, referring to the murdered civil rights leader, the vice president added:
“You think of how he changed America. He inspired us to change through the legislative process, to become a more perfect union.â€
“That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on Congress to do — come to the table in the spirit of good faith.â€
“We’ll secure our border. We’ll reopen the government, and we’ll move our nation forward, as the president said yesterday, to even a broader discussion about immigration reform in the months ahead.”
Many people were shocked that Pence, part of the most racist administration in U.S. history, tried to justify Trump’s racist behavior — and build public support for it — by appropriating the words of the most beloved civil rights activist America has ever known.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s Democratic non-voting delegate to Congress, tweeted:
“We’ve got to remember on #MartinLutherKing‘s birthday the progress we’ve made. At the same time we can’t allow Vice President Pence to get away with cleansing the president on Martin Luther King’s birthday.â€
.@EleanorNorton: We've got to remember on #MartinLutherKing's birthday the progress we've made. At the same time we can't allow Vice President Pence to get away with cleansing the president on Martin Luther King's birthday. #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/ODcxkl6OCj
— Formerly 'AM JOY' on @MSNBC (@amjoyshow) January 20, 2019
The NAACP, which King served as an executive board member in Montgomery, Alabama, called the remarks “an insult to Dr. King’s legacy.”
This is an insult to Dr. King's Legacy. https://t.co/tJ6jTfweIJ
— NAACP (@NAACP) January 20, 2019
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., likewise called Pence‘s use of King’s words “beyond disgraceful.” She tweeted:
“To equate the legacy of one of America’s finest statesmen and champions of civil rights with a vanity project built on racist ideology and hatred is beyond disgraceful. @VP owes the American people, and the memory of Dr. King, an immediate and profuse apology. @POTUS is no MLK!â€
To equate the legacy of one of America’s finest statesmen and champions of civil rights with a vanity project built on racist ideology and hatred is beyond disgraceful. @VP owes the American people, and the memory of Dr. King, an immediate and profuse apology. @POTUS is no MLK!
— Jackie Speier (@RepSpeier) January 20, 2019
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, noted Pence‘s comments and tweeted:
““One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the the promises of democracy,’†Mike Pence said before arguing that like MLK, Trump has “inspired us to change.â€
They “honor” MLK every year by assassinating who he was.â€
“One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the the promises of democracy,’†Mike Pence said before arguing that like MLK, Trump has “inspired us to change.â€
They "honor" MLK every year by assassinating who he was.https://t.co/WJzCsq32wF
— Ibram X. Kendi (@DrIbram) January 21, 2019
Mike Pence is dumb enough to think that if he quotes Martin Luther King then he will trick people into believing that he is not a racist. Clearly, however, what Pence tried to do didn’t work. Everyone knows he and Trump are racists, and everyone knows that the wall is a bad idea and will never be built.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
