This dredged up some of the charges against King, who rose to fame by playing the race card at the Daily News. The Daily Beast, today:
I rarely read King's column in the Daily News. One time that I did, I found him to be spin-doctoring and being a provocateur. That's not surprising, is it? Most columnists of this type, as well as daily blabbers like Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones, have to maintain their hype. Their professions is being pissed off and opinionated, and playing to their nodding audience of acolytes.
You think Spike Lee checks the mirror now and then to make sure his expression veers between sour and sullen?
Oh, here's Shaun King in case you haven't seen him:
Oh. Sorry. He's looking a bit white in that photo. That first name, SHAUN, is not exactly black either. Hold on. Let's try to find a picture where he's got the "Game Face" on. An official portrait, one that Spike Lee might nod and say, "Yo, That's almost BROOKLYN."
Better? Or is still a bit too, uh, "hipster?"
I've done a spin, haven't I? At least I admit it. Journalists do this. They deliberately choose an unflattering picture, or one that makes a slanted point.
Ah, but let's not get too frisky here, because the guy's written some decent columns now and then for his people, and he's written columns defending why he doesn't write about injustice done to any other groups of people.
Odd isn't it, that the Daily News gave Shaun King a column so that he could expose the injustices against blacks, but they didn't hire a Korean columnist. They didn't hire a Chinese columnist to discuss the destruction of Chinatown. Hell, they didn't even hire an Italian columnist to talk about the shrinking of Little Italy. No Jewish columnist to point out that the Holocaust happened fairly recently and that Jews around the world are still the #1 persecuted minority on the planet.
The Daily News' publisher when King was at the height of his bullying, was Mort Zuckerman. Well, he was probably not going to risk being a schmuck and have a column that could be called condescending or pandering to Jews. At best, he had a guy named Gersh Kunzman writing little comical pieces about the city. That's what Jews do. They're funny. They have no right to ever be angry.
No, the Daily News did not have a columnist handling the rights of Native Americans (the Shinnecock Indians are on Long Island...the Daily News doesn't consider Long Island part of New York??) No columnist to even be an ombudsman (or "Public Advocate") and talk about Quality of Life violations (as Betty Dewing was doing for "Our Town"). No no no. And NO.
Here's the Shaun King column that got my attention. It was about that RACIST, that AWFUL AWFUL Francis Scott Key, and how wonderful Colin Winkydink was, to take a knee and not stand for that awful, horrible, despicable, nasty, racist, foul "Star Spangled Banner" National Anthem we have:
Catchy, right? Provocative. Let's read all about it. Let's get the spin on this Francis Scott Key guy, who, after all, is no HAMILTON. Alexander Hamilton, if you pay attention to Puerto Rican Broadway millionaires, was one jive-ass who RAPPED. A truly cool bastard, that Alex. Maybe he owned slaves, maybe he didn't. But the man could RAP. That's revisionist history at its finest. Also good, was that there were no white people in a show about white people. HAMILTON, was white? Not likely. But let's get back to the awful Francis Scott Key. Shaun?
There. Shaun King wrote it, so it must be so. He was there. Scott Key was a "terrible person," unlike, oh, Shaun King. Shaun King, who is being attacked (unjustly?) by black women and The Daily Beast today. A guy who, to be fair, might have gotten a swelled head from his tenure at the Daily News and his fame and his massive Twitter following.
If you bother to check any history book, you'll find that Scott Key was NOT a "terrible person." He was a lawyer who represented slaves many times in court, and battled to give them justice. He was a man of his time. He was ignorant in some ways. What is important is to take on the KKK and the rednecks and the idiots NOW, who think some ethnic race, be it Black, Polish, Jewish or Mexican is "inferior." We know better now. We know that all humans have the same blood, and given the right teaching, can be doctors and even President.
Key died in 1843. Ten years later, Franklin Pierce, our 14th President, was leading us in a Civil War thanks to the Kansas-Nebraska fiasco. The man from New Hampshire was sympathetic to the South, and believed the Southerners needed their slaves in order for their economy to stay strong. He was more than willing to allow new states to join the union and keep slaves.
Yes, a lot of people were ignorant back in Key's day, but millions and millions were willing to die in a Civil War to abolish slavery. Key? He once said the slaves were "a distinct and inferior race of people,” but he did not want them to suffer. Even a rudimentary check of Wikipedia will tell you that:
"Key also represented several slaves seeking their freedom in court (for free)...Key, Judge William Leigh of Halifax, and bishop William Meade were administrators of the will of their friend John Randolph of Roanoke, who left a will directing his executors to free his more than four hundred slaves....
"Key publicly criticized slavery's cruelties, so much that after his death a newspaper editorial stated "So actively hostile was he to the peculiar institution that he was called 'The Nigger Lawyer' .... because he often volunteered to defend the downtrodden sons and daughters of Africa. Mr. Key convinced me that slavery was wrong—radically wrong." In June 1842, Key attended the funeral of William Costin, a free, mixed race resident who had challenged Washington's surety bond laws."
Does that sound like a "terrible person?"
No, it doesn't, but a spin doctor and editorialist like Shaun King, and like many many others, is going to twist things, be selective, and come up with either a hero to praise or a villain to scapegoat.
Here's screen captures of King's attack on Francis Scott Key:
Huh?
King's headline is how he won't sing the Star Spangled Banner...and he's complaining about lines that are NOT IN THE SONG.
The song, as is yelped and squealed in sports stadiums, does not include the lines he quotes.
King wrote a poem. Only a few stanzas were adapted (from a drunken British tune called "The Anacreontic Song") for what's become our national anthem.
What Key was alluding to, was that some slaves sided with the British. They figured, why not join the side who are trying to kill White Americans? Whether the British would then conveniently kill the slaves, or put them into slavery as "the White Man's Burden" (a Kipling term) they didn't really think about.
What pissed off Key, was that he was helplessly a prisoner on a British boat that was firing on Fort McHenry. His people, as well as many blacks, were being killed. He was not thrilled with any traitors, black or white, who were on the side of the British. That's all.
Moving on, Shaun King calls Key a "STONE COLD BIGOT."
Got that? If Key was alive, he'd do what King loves to do...SUE. Get the LAWYERS. Complain of being MALIGNED AND LIBELED:
Does a "STONE COLD BIGOT" defend slaves in a court of law and get them their freedom? Shaun King didn't do his research, because he was writing a provocateur piece for a New York tabloid. Being fair was not the point. You could argue he was being a COLUMNIST not a JOURNALIST, right? He's entitled to his opinion, and entitled to NOT bother even taking a glance at Wikipedia or anywhere else. "STONE COLD BIGOT" sounds TOO good.
King uses the "inferior" line, but doesn't mention that Key was also once called "The Nigger Lawyer," or that his views on abolition changed over time.
Instead, he set up Francis Scott Key as a STONE COLD BIGOT and the singing of the "Star Spangled Banner" as something no proud black person should EVER do. That would include George Foreman among others. George Foreman and people of his generation suffered far more persecution and bigotry than Shaun King. They lived at a time when there were "black only" and "white only" bathrooms and restaurants. I wrote about this in my book on Bill Cosby. Cosby encountered this, too. And yet, Foreman does not share Shaun King's view of the National Anthem...or King's view that a football player, worth millions, was a hero for taking a knee during a song.
Ridiculous isn't it? Woodrow Wilson, also declared a BIGOT, chose the "Star Spangled Anthem" because...of a line that is NOT in the song? Did Wilson even know Key's entire poem? Did Wilson know that Key defended slaves in court?
Shaun King is too busy raging about how wonderful Colin Winkydink is, and how horrible a simple lyric with NO racism is, to tell the truth. The truth is that "The Star Spangled Banner" is just a song that is very hard to sing. It REMAINS hard to sing by everyone, including a huge number of blacks who sing it at boxing matches, baseball games, football games, and other silly events where patriotism shouldn't even be an issue.
Not standing for a song that merely underlines that America is about as good as it gets around the world? You think Colin would be making millions of dollars somewhere else? Did Colin stop and consider that his birth mother, white, was not a racist? That his adoptive parents (who gave him his funny last name) were both WHITE and NOT RACISTS? That many people in this country don't really know anything about the "Star Spangled Banner" except that it's some kind of song about a battle and about being glad America won it?
Why pick on the song? The answer is, there's nothing wrong with the song. So go pick on the author and call him a STONE COLD RACIST even if he is NOT.
It's not a surprise that Shaun King's reckless spin doctoring in this story progressed to the point where his ego got the better of him in other cases.
But let's get back to THIS story for one last word. It comes from George Foreman.
I met George. I read his book. What impressed me most in his book, was a line early on. He said he was NOT going to identify the people he met in his life by their color. He was not going to mention if he was helped by somebody white or somebody black. To the people who want to know the color of his friends, he wrote: "Ask yourself why that's important to you."
Muhammad Ali had Angelo Dundee in his corner. And George had white people on his side through his career. Why get caught up in spin doctoring about some STONE COLD RACIST and some TERRIBLE PERSON when the truth is neither black nor white?
Ignorance divides us. Spinning a story just to be a provocateur cheats the reader.
As idiotic as Piers Morgan can be, one of his catch phrases is, "If I'm being honest...." It's a very British remark, and almost an apology for telling the truth. Well, "IF I'M BEING HONEST," I don't consider Shaun King to be a TERRIBLE PERSON or even a STONE COLD BIGOT.
While his piece on Key always bothered me, I know he used his column to publicize legitimate cases of bigotry and injustice. I also think that being a BLACK COLUMNIST meant it wasn't his job to call out bigotry about some other group. It's like asking a film critic why he doesn't review Broadway shows.
It's disappointing when any columnist, any publisher, any politician gets behind the bully pulpit, or misuses his power. Shaun King is being called on it today.
And though he wrote it a few years ago, Shaun King never issued any kind of correction to the libel of saying Francis Scott Key was a STONE COLD RACIST and a TERRIBLE PERSON. Deciding to take a knee because America isn't perfect is questionable. Do you suppose a white cop is going to stop, in the middle of a tense encounter with a black person, and think, "Hey, I can't shoot this guy, Colin took a KNEE?"
If your opinion is that America could do better, you're entitled to it, and I'd agree, and point out that it applies to ALL people, as most everyone can be maligned and mistreated by others, and that includes the white Australian, Chris Lane, who was shot in the back by some thug rappers in Oklahoma who thought it would be a fun evening's entertainment. Were they STONE COLD RACISTS?
Do we note that racism happens all over the world, and includes North Koreans sending their own to Russia as slaves? That Boko Haram targets other blacks? That members of radical Muslim groups attack other Muslim groups for not being, what, Muslim-y enough? Shiite instead of Sunni? Do we note that Francis Scott Key lived before the Civil War, but the "troubles" between The Irish and the English were only a generation ago and could flare again any minute? That Russians have indulged in ethnic cleansing against people who look almost the same as they do? That the average person couldn't tell an Israeli from a Palestinian?
Today on Twitter, quite a lot of Blacks were taking Shaun King to task. If this piece wasn't already too long, I'd screen capture some of them.
Oh...well...let's, in the immortal words of Moe, "pick two"...just to show that this isn't STONE COLD RACIST whites targeting Shaun unfairly:
Another person I met and admired was Dick Gregory. He had a gentle catch-phrase he used often in his act: "So you see, we all have problems."
It includes a guy like Shaun King trying to fill up a column and look for a stereotype balloon he could pop...a ballon with Francis Scott Key written on it in effigy.
"So you see, we all have problems," and today on Twitter, Shaun King had problems.
But you know what? He just might not be a "TERRIBLE PERSON." Just human.
Oh, Shaun and Colin, who think Key is a "stone cold racist" and people should junk the anthem...THIS JUST IN...
Gladys Knight, who was around in the days of restricted restaurants, restricted schools, and violence against Blacks and Jewish "freedom riders" so common it was often not even headline news, said this:
"“I am here today and on Sunday, Feb. 3 to give the Anthem back its voice, to stand for that historic choice of words, the way it unites us when we hear it and to free it from the same prejudices and struggles I have fought long and hard for all my life, from walking back hallways, from marching with our social leaders, from using my voice for good — I have been in the forefront of this battle longer than most of those voicing their opinions to win the right to sing our country’s Anthem on a stage as large as the Super Bowl LIII.
“No matter who chooses to deflect with this narrative and continue to mix these two in the same message, it is not so and cannot be made so by anyone speaking it. I pray that this National Anthem will bring us all together in a way never before witnessed and we can move forward and untangle these truths which mean so much to all of us.”
Bottom line? George Foreman who grew up in poverty, worked hard and achieved the American dream. Gladys Knight is also world-famous because of her determination and talent. It wasn't easy for them, and others of their generation. But spin-doctoring and ignoring facts and painting Francis Scott Key as a "stone cold racist" helped turn a very mediocre reporter into a famous bully. Taking a knee put a mediocre football player on the cover of Time Magazine and he still milks it for media attention. The slick highway to fame that King and Kaepernick took worked for them, but the hard road traveled by Foreman and Knight is what should be respected a lot more.
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