A bitter dispute over the planned military flyover at Monday's Martin Luther King march has split peace activists, longtime march supporters and East Side community members, and could result in a smaller turnout for what has been the nation's largest MLK march.
Some opponents of the flyover are calling for a boycott of the march, while others plan to attend with bandanas over their mouths and black and yellow ribbons around their arms in a show of protest.
Two fighter jets from the 99th Flying Training Squadron at Randolph AFB will zoom over Pittman-Sullivan Park at noon at the end of the nearly three-mile march from Martin Luther King Drive to Iowa Street.
While some say the flyover will provide a patriotic flair to the march during a time of war, others say it will represent support for the war -- something King would not approve of.
The Rev. Herman Price, chairman of the city's MLK Commission, said the flyover was meant to honor King, and he is dismayed by the divisiveness it has caused.
"It all depends on how you look at it," Price said Thursday. "They say the planes represent war and bombs and death, but at the same time those planes can also represent our freedom and peace."
The above, from Lisa Marie Gómez's "Sparks Fly Over Flyover at MLK March" (San Antonio Express-News via Common Dreams) was noted KeShawn who declares Herman Price "an idiot."
KeShawn: If you're that ignorant of what MLK stood for, you don't chair a commission on the man and his legacy. To say "it all depends on how you look at it" reveals that Price learned of the "I Have a Dream" speech and not a damn thing else. Like my grandfather always said, "There are fools and there are damn fools."
Possibly Sheila McNeil would rank in the last grouping? McNeil explains that this is "a peace march" and that the military provides peace. Maybe the FBI could also fly over at this MLK event as long as the commission endorses a "depends on how you look at it" view? McNeil has been very involved in the committee, reports Triana who lives in San Antonio, and has "seized as much glory for it as she could as soon as she could."
Price and McNeil get glorified, the war machine gets glorified (What? A predator drone wasn't available for a fly over?) and any sense of what MLK stood for is buried. It all depends on how you look at it, to use Price's words, and the way Triana, KeShawn and I see it, it looks pretty disgusting, pretty self-serving and having little to do with the legacy of MLK.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
mlk
