‘The Curse of King Martin’ and more

Two oldies but goodies of mine, for MLK Day…

Lowry was clearly unfamiliar with (black) comedian Chris Rock’s 1996 bit about avoiding any street in America named Martin Luther King Boulevard. As everyone (except National Review editors) knows, avenues christened in honor of that self-proclaimed champion of nonviolence usually run through black neighborhoods and tend to be among the country’s most dangerous.

The Curse of King Martin now seems to have extended beyond eponymous boulevards. In a development that’s sure to equal bad news for the Mall in DC, whites are on notice to steer clear of streets boasting monuments to MLK, too.

Speaking of monuments:

These plagiarism “talking points” were once confined to “white supremacist” chat rooms. Today, the topic (as well as King’s serial adultery) is approaching “everybody knows” velocity. Perhaps now someone will ask King’s litigious, avaricious estate why they charge exorbitant licensing fees for the use of his speeches in everything from academic papers to TV commercials [even] if those words never belonged to King in the first place. Helpfully, excerpts from those [plagiarised] speeches are carved into the memorial, inadvertently turning it into a monument to intellectual-property theft. (King’s family billed the memorial foundation $800,000 for that privilege.)