Republican Arkansas Governor To Spend MLK Day Stomping On Confederate Hearts

He's just asking.

[contextly_sidebar id="EyRLvWPCRexFfjVS0iQSWgkf6Zma5Mli"]It's that special holiday again, the one where Republicans get on Twitter and Facespace and say things like, "You know, if Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive today, he wouldn't be such a fan of The Blacks!" You think we are exaggerating? Here is deadbeat dad and former Congresstwat Joe Walsh, King-splaining on Twitter:  

Believe us, that is just the tip of the iceberg of racist Republican jizz that's out there "commemorating" Dr. King.

So, in an effort to say GOOD JOB KIND OF! to Republicans when they actually do a Good Job Kind Of, we pause to note that Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson actually thinks it's sort of inappropriate for his state to celebrate King's birthday ON THE SAME DAY as Confederate general and all-around traitor Robert E. Lee:

U.S. civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil War Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee will share a common holiday on Monday in three southern states, but perhaps for the final time in one of them, Arkansas.

The state's Republican governor is pushing to separate the joint celebration after critics said it is an insult for the man who fought to end racial segregation to share a day with a man who fought to preserve slavery. [...]

"It's important that that day be distinguished and separate and focused on the civil rights struggle and what he personally did in that effort,” Hutchinson said.

Yes, we can imagine many reasons why people wouldn't want to acknowledge that Confederate fuckpig loser the same day as King, especially in a region where SOME white people (the bigot ones) still privately LOL to themselves when they call today "James Earl Ray Appreciation Day," or the even trashier "Buckwheat's Birthday." (Sorry to give away your secrets, racist white people, just kidding we are not sorry.)

Of course, an even BETTER idea would be to say, "Why don't we never celebrate Robert E. Lee again?" But tiny baby steps, people, tiny baby steps, and kudos to Asa Hutchinson The White Republican Governor for actually saying that King's legacy SHOULD be celebrated, untarnished by yucky gross "Heritage Not Hate" bullshit.

[contextly_sidebar id="bVAHi74Jri47skHoANnKEivmfWFTV5st"]Because, if you have been paying attention the past year, the South has been grappling in a very public way with what to do with these dusty relics of its past. New Orleans and Memphis are embroiled in fights over whether to keep big ugly statues of big ugly Confederate traitor "heroes" in otherwise pretty public parks, or just melt them down for scrap.

[contextly_sidebar id="GoGmtpvODWc02mnX5TL51l1bQqPhOryJ"]After the Charleston shootings, the stupid confederate flag started setting its own dumb self on fire all over Dixie, fucking finally. The shootings were enough to convince South Carolina, that cosmopolitan hotspot of racial reconciliation, to remove the treason flag from the state house.

Progress is slow, but it is happening, is our point.

[contextly_sidebar id="UZcxxJgHEWyh9ep1veVriH78XTBXOEmn"]Maybe the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama will be inspired by Gov. Hutchinson to throw their Robert E. Lee celebrations in the trash? Haha, we are not holding our breath. Maybe Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose state celebrates "Confederate Heroes Day" tomorrow, will wake up on the right side of history about this one day? BRB, dying of laughter, because that guy is a DICK. 

But maybe one day? Come on, slave states, YOU CAN DO THIS!

[ Reuters ]