Cliven Bundy Refuses to Stop Talking.... The Daily Kos

Fri Apr 25, 2014 at 07:18 AM PDT

Cliven Bundy: If people think I'm racist, it's because Martin Luther King 'hasn't got his job done'

by Laura ClawsonFollow

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attribution: REUTERS

 

Deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy seems to have finally realized he needs to backtrack a little on that whole wondering if maybe black people were better off under slavery thing. He got a decent start on CNN Friday morning, saying "Maybe I sinned and maybe I need to ask forgiveness and maybe I don’t know what I actually said." If he'd taken "maybe" out of that sentence three times and stopped there, that would have been a nice apology. But then he kept talking:

If I call — if I say negro or black boy or slave, I’m not — if those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offended, then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done then yet. They should be able to — I should be able to say those things and they shouldn’t offend anybody.

It seems safe to say Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't think his job is done. The man didn't stop organizing for civil rights because he thought he'd won, after all; he stopped because he was murdered. And this nation still has an awful lot of racial inequality, from job discrimination to the difference in response to Cliven Bundy's armed standoff with the federal government and what would happen if a group of black men did the same thing. So, no, King hasn't got his job done yet, and he personally never will. 

 

Equally, Mr. Bundy, why would you think people would not be offended by a string of offensive words? Why should the measure of Martin Luther King's job being done be that you get to talk like a 1950s Mississippi good ol' boy without offending anyone?

Originally posted to Laura Clawson on Fri Apr 25, 2014 at 07:18 AM PDT.

Also republished by Daily Kos.