Years ago, newspapers only covered on local events were at where the newspaper company was located. Today most big newspaper companies cover national, or even international news. Looking over the coverage of MLK50, Australia had some coverage of the MLK50. It is interesting to see what they had to say about it and Dr. King. Also, considering they did not completely allow people other than Caucasians into the county until 1973. Looking over the articles that were written about Dr. King in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation there does not seem to be a lot of articles about him. There are a few from MLK50 and then maybe one, or in a rare chance two were written in a year, but years go by without news articles about Dr. King. There were not many, or any articles about the FBI record discovery, which is surprising to me because it seems like it is a big deal. I guess that I did not learn about this until I came to college.
Two famous African Americans for people that live in other countries are Martin Luther King and Barack Obama. Dr. King is an iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement and Obama is the first African American president, which is a big deal for our country. This article gives a lot of background about United States history and reasons why slavery and segregation were such big deals. It says, “Certainly, in a market society, where competition determines most people’s life prospects, “the pursuit of happiness” as an equal right of all citizens would not be guaranteed until blacks were no longer handicapped by the legacy of white domination.”[1] The newspaper is trying to show justification for what the United States has done and is doing by using our government documents as a reason why African American were fighting for their rights. It is strange that they do not use the line “all men are created equal” to show that no person is more or less than another. Happiness is a drive that can drive people to fight for the right, but the Constitution literally states that “all men are created equal”. As the quote says Americans are very focused on being the best and having the most money. African Americans were seen as a threat to white people starting from the 1600s, which is the reason African American were treated as second-class citizens. America has been fighting the for equal rights of every single United States citizen since the 1600s and today we continue to fight this battle. Other countries know the struggle of race in the United States, but as a college student that loves learning about other countries, I know little about race issues in other countries. Why do you think that the United States Civil Right Movement is so globally known? I know other countries have race/religious/cultural problems, but why are we not educated on them?
Shelby, Tommie. “Two Visions of Justice: Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack
Obama.” Australia Broadcasting Corporation, April 16, 2018.
[1] Tommie Shelby, “Two Visions of Justice: Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama,” Australia Broadcasting Corporation, April 16, 2018.
I find this article very sad in the sense that other countries are trying to justify our past to their people. I think we are at the point where history just needs to be told and not justified. Justifying it by saying that we just want to be the best is not a justification for a whole country to not care about the people that lives in it. Everyone keeps trying to justify what we did, but the problem is that we are still racist today. Rather than justifying America's past, it is time to take ownership of what we have done as well as what we continue to do.
ReplyDelete