Republicans Need to Stop Wasting MLK Day

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive and well today, Save Jerseyans?

I think he’d be impressed by how color blind my generation is; he’d also be disgusted by the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world and how they’ve profited while many of America’s black neighborhoods continued to suffer.

MLKSo we can honor Dr. King’s legacy through volunteer work, yes, but more importantly by rejecting race profiteers and voting for REAL change. Not the fluffy, fake Obama variety that comes prepackaged in a can.

“The time is always right to do what is right.” Amen!

Where to start?

Republicans can stop wasting MLK Day with platitudinal calls for “service” in our communities and utilize a unique opportunity to advocate for, again, REAL change. Like the implementation of school choice reforms. The inequality in our education system isn’t tied to funding, and it remains the last great civil rights hurdle facing America’s youth.

Why don’t more GOP’ers speak out? They don’t do it more often, I suspect, due to a lack of confidence. They’re gun shy after effectively getting hit with the race card for decades, but I believe it’s a needless fear because the country is changing.

We’re more color blind than ever. Barack Obama and his party’s economic job performance where black America is concerned is nevertheless nothing short of abysmal.

mlk marchesWhat’s more, the Obama Administration’s shameful handling of the Ferguson situation – juxtaposed with his symbolic abdication of international leadership by skipping the Paris anti-terror rally – has shaken America’s confidence in this president’s character.

So much so that a new Monmouth University poll out today found only 15% of Americans believing race relations in our country are getting better during the Obama years; 43% say they’re getting worse. 68% of black Americans say they’re either worse or not improving.

This is a historic opportunity to overcome many years of lies, distorted history, and a bad policy to achieve a breakthrough in our country’s political race relations. Young, charismatic and skilled leaders like Mia Love and Tim Scott can open doors if we’re brave enough to back them up.

Dr. King said it best:

“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;

Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.

Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?

Expediency ask the question, is it politic?

Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

My earnest prayer for today, Save Jerseyans? For my fellow Republicans to be courageous in 2015, 2016 and beyond. It’s not just a partisan thing; MLK’s country and his people need it. 

Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8691 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

7 Comments

  1. @Justin The truth is difficult for some people to hear. My response: too bad! It’s time for honesty.

  2. We Republicans also need to remind people that Martin Luther King was a Republican! How many people actually know that?

  3. “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,

    who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice;

    who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;

    who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’;

    who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom;

    who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’

    Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” – Dr Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imn6DzAdWZc&sns=em

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