No big surprise

Get ready for the white men of the Republican party to lecture black leaders about not knowing their place

At the funeral of Coretta Scott King, the grande dame of America's civil rights and progressive activist community, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, a revered elder of that same community, criticized President Bush, and the war, and the fact that America still has so many poor and needy. Kind of something you'd expect at the funeral of a woman who after her husband was assassinated, yet the day before he was buried, led a civil rights march of 50,000 people. A woman who spoke at an anti-war rally in NYC only 3 weeks after her husband was mattered. A woman who devoted her entire life to non-violence.

I say this because you know it's only a matter of hours before the Republican Swift Boating of Rev. Lowery and Coretta's funeral begins. How dare a black man not know his place at a funeral, they'll say. As if the Republican party and its surrogates have any right whatsoever to speak on behalf of Mrs. King, to tell black America what they can and cannot do to honor one of their most revered leaders.

A party that doesn't have a single African-American member of Congress has no right lecturing black people about knowing their place.[Emphasis added.]