Daniel TilsonWith Florida public policy and lawmaking controlled by Republicans since 1996 and by Gov. Rick Scott’s posse of hardcore GOP conservatives since 2011, Martin Luther King Day 2014 seems high time to ask:
What MLK would make of the state of the Sunshine State these days?
It’s safe to say he wouldn’t see eye to eye with Scott and other GOP candidates circling the state this election year touting cherry-picked, misleading statistics and claiming credit for an economic “recovery.”
King would no doubt challenge all people of good conscience to question such claims, to look at the “Big Picture” and ask:
What kind of economic recovery, and for whom?
He might remind us — and remind us to remind every family member, friend, neighbor and stranger within our reach — that our state has grown increasingly, dangerously divided between haves and have-nots.
He’d likely highlight an income inequality gap that has steadily widened in Florida and is among the worst in the nation, citing sobering statistics that Republicans steer clear of on the campaign trail:
- Poverty rate: 19.5%
- Child poverty rate: 25%
- Senior poverty rate: 17%
- Single-parent families in poverty: 35%
With his unparalleled combination of intelligence, eloquence and compassion, King could help working poor and middle class white Floridians see how much this “Tale Of Two Floridas” hurts them.
He could help connect the dots and show how powerful private special interests have used politicians to write laws that let the richest people and corporations in the state evade paying their fair share of taxes.
He could help clarify how the overwhelming portion of the state’s tax burden has been dumped on the backs of working poor and middle-class families, to make up for all the giveaways to the top 1 percent.
He could explain that conservative attacks on and cuts to social services for the poor result in a whole host of hidden higher taxes and social stability costs for the middle class.
He could confront and condemn the carefully constructed rhetoric of divisiveness that politicians use to turn White against Black and Hispanic, to turn middle class against poor.
Every time a political candidate talked about making government smaller, King could remind us that was code for making the poor poorer and leaving the middle class treading water.
Whenever an office-seeker sought support from working poor and middle class white voters by telling them they deserved “freedom” from having their taxes and government help poor people who should be held “accountable” and demonstrate “personal responsibility”…
Reverend King could bring the full force of moral suasion to bear and blow such sinfully submerged callousness right out of the muddy water.
From the same moral-ethical foundation, he could build broad public support for repealing Florida’s anti-union “Right To Work” law that prevents workers from gaining better wages, benefits and job security.
King would unquestionably fight for increasing the minimum wage and providing minimum sick-leave benefits to all workers, reminding any skeptical middle-class Floridians that “A rising tide lifts all boats”; or as he put it in a speech about 50 years ago:
“People must be made consumers by one method or the other …and we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.”
Beyond all the educating, communicating and consciousness raising, today’s a day and 2014 a year for us all to remember that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was above all, a man of action.
Take heed.
