On Sacred Cows

[legion]

Nostatic removing a post that I didn't have a chance to read on the MLK thread made me think of this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080121/ap_on_re_us/mlk_legacy

NEW YORK - Nearly 40 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., some say his legacy is being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.
...
King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.
...
By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.

"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.

King has been frozen in 1963. The next five years of his life are largely ignored. In fact, to bring them up almost universally brings condemnation.

In the U.S., we don't like our heroes with flaws.