disturbing the comfortable

I know my blog is all about my awesome parenting abilities & recently has turned into one long boastful session of how pulled together I am & confident while awaiting the birth of my baby who will no doubt sleep through the night at 3 weeks & solve world hunger by the time he's five. He'll most likely do his best thinking & problem solving while playing with his mother's hair by the way.

So I'll give you a break from all the peace & loveliness of my turmoil-free life to discuss the single most random subject I have ever brought up on said blog - Jackie Kennedy's tapes! What the what, say you? If you haven't heard about the taped conversations that have been recently released, I suggest you check this article out & peruse some of the links. It's kind of fascinating & a weird little sheltered view back into that magical mystical world of Camelot. But long story short, she had some beef with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. not being what he should have been in her eyes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/civil-rights-leaders-respond-to-jackie-kennedy/2011/09/15/gIQAatA1UK_blog.html

Anyway, I have a confession to make in light of all of this - I have such a soft spot for Jesse Jackson. Seriously, I know relatively little about him in the scheme of things but the man chooses some beautiful words to get a message across. For exy (that's my new invented way of saying "for example," inspired by the genius of the made-up word "totes" instead of "totally")(but I digress), here are his statements on this whole Jackie brouhaha:

Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist:

“Dr. King disturbed the comfortable and comforted the disturbed. In many ways, he traumatized many people with changes his leadership brought, but publicly she was very gracious.”

“Bobby Kennedy in his anxiety as Attorney General allowed J. Edgar Hoover to do the wire tapping. It just shows the spirit of the times,” Jackson said. “The people who hurt us was not Jackie Kennedy. The people who hurt us blocked school doors. They arrested us, unleashed the dogs and stood on the floor of the House and spoke against the public accommodations bill and set the climate of violence against us. I still see Jackie Kennedy in very favorable terms.”

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I love the image of disturbing the comfortable & comforting the disturbed. How lovely is that? And here is a man who was standing right beside Dr. King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on that fateful April 4th, a man who has every right to hold a grudge (for lack of a more appropriate term) against anyone who doubted the sincerity of the civil rights movement. But he refocuses the light to where it should be. I'll be the first to say that Jackie's statements rubbed me wrong but I'm quick to take offense on behalf of others - not one of my best attributes, I'll admit - & plenty of notable civil rights names understandably had more critical opinions but I like Jesse's point of view & hope that I find ways in my life to focus on the point, ignore the drama & not hold a grudge. 

And holy mother of toast, why can't I paste anything on this blog without throwing my font into a tizzy? Nevermind, not the point - not holding it against blogger or anything. Carry on, carry on.