It’s Time to Admit America Has Changed; The New York Times, November 6, 2024

Patrick Healy and David French, The New York Times; It’s Time to Admit America Has Changed

"Donald Trump’s enduring hold over the Republican Party will send him back to the White House. On this episode of “The Opinions,” the columnist David French joins the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy to discuss the future of the G.O.P. and what a second Trump term might mean for America...

Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of Opinion, and I’ve covered American politics for decades as a reporter, editor and running our New York Times focus groups.

David French: I’m David French, a columnist for Opinion...

Healy: David, America has never been here before. It looks like a felon is about to take the presidency. Someone who incited an insurrection at the Capitol, who tried to overturn the 2020 election. Whose view and belief in the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power and the Constitution is just a really open question. I know it’s left a lot of Americans with a lot of frankly terrified feelings and they don’t know what the next four years are going to be like or how they’re going to get through it. And I find myself wondering when you look ahead, what’s weighing on your mind as we head into Wednesday and in the next few days?

French: You know, I was speaking at a college a few days ago and someone asked, “What will be your mindset if Donald Trump wins?” And I think of it as having two real components: Protect the vulnerable and speak the truth.

When you think about Trump’s declaration of vengeance, he wants to pursue his political enemies. He wants to pursue deportations at a scale that would be terrifying. So you can already see that there are vulnerable populations that will need protection. That includes political dissidents, political opponents that might be vulnerable to a vengeful Department of Justice. That includes immigrants and others who — you know, think about it this way, you’re talking about people who have said, “Hey, look, if there’s a person who is an illegal immigrant, but they have children who are citizens, well, so what? So what? Just sweep them out.” Right?

So there’s going to be this real need to protect vulnerable populations, protect vulnerable people. And then the other thing is, if there’s one thing that we’ve learned, it is very, very difficult to combat large-scale lying and defamation from people who have an immense amount of power and privilege. That is just very difficult because people who come into politics sort of more casually don’t know much about it — they don’t know if someone says yes and another person says no, if one person says up and another person says down — they don’t know how to adjudicate these disputes. And so I think about it in these two ways: protect the vulnerable, speak the truth, and I think of it in this moment as this is a real clarion call moment. At some point we’re going to have to sort of continue to put aside many of the differences that have divided sort of the different elements of the anti-Trump coalition.

I think it’s totally fine to grieve this. It’s totally fine to lament that this has occurred and to grieve that this is where we are as a country. But that’s got to be short, because if we care about justice in this country, there’s going to be a lot of work to do. I don’t think anyone should feel like the American experiment is over, but we should understand and gain knowledge from history that America can regress.

You know, Martin Luther King Jr. said the arc of history is long, but “it bends toward justice.” I remain relatively optimistic in that direction. But we’ve had long periods of backsliding, and we might be walking into one of those periods right now. And I just think when I look back at American history, you know, who stands out in those periods as having resisted the drift of the times, as having said no when so many other people were saying yes to injustice and hatred, and so that’s why I really think of it in these two frames. Defend the vulnerable, speak the truth."

Why ‘Star Trek’ was so important to Martin Luther King Jr.; Washington Post, 9/8/16

Elahe Izadi, Washington Post; Why ‘Star Trek’ was so important to Martin Luther King Jr. :

"Then, she broke the news to him that she was quitting the show. His smile faded, Nichols recalled later, as he firmly told the actress that she couldn’t leave “Star Trek.”

“He said, ‘Don’t you understand what this man [Roddenberry] has achieved? For the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing and dance, yes, but who can go into space, who can be lawyers and teachers, who can be professors — who are in this day, yet you don’t see it on television until now,'” Nichols recalled in a later interview.

He went on: “Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us. If you leave, that door can be closed. Because, you see, your role is not a black role, it’s not a female role. He can fill it with anything, including an alien.”...

Nichols stayed on the show, and said she never regretted that life-altering decision. She went on to help NASA recruit new astronaut candidates, many of whom were women and people of color."

Tim Cook Tells Stephen Colbert The Real Reason He Came Out As Gay; HuffingtonPost.com, 9/16/15

Ron Dicker, HuffingtonPost.com; Tim Cook Tells Stephen Colbert The Real Reason He Came Out As Gay:

"Apple CEO Tim Cook, who came out as gay last year, told "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert Tuesday he made the move out of social responsibility...

Cook gave a thoughtful answer.

Citing a quote about the importance of doing for others by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Cook then told Colbert: "It became so clear to me that kids were getting bullied in school, kids were getting basically discriminated against, kids were even being disclaimed by their own parents, and that I needed to do something.And that where I valued my privacy significantly, I felt that I was valuing it too far above what I could do for other people. And so I wanted to tell everyone my truth.""

[Podcast] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Public Imagination; On the Media, 1/14/11

[Podcast] On the Media; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Public Imagination:

"On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. did what he’d done countless times before, he began building a sermon. And in his sermons King relied on improvisation - drawing on sources and references that were limited only by his imagination and memory. It’s a gift – and a tradition - on full display in the 'I Have A Dream' speech but it’s also in conflict with the intellectual property laws that have been strenuously used by his estate since his death. OTM producer Jamie York speaks with Drew Hansen, Keith Miller, Michael Eric Dyson and Lewis Hyde about King, imagination and the consequences of limiting access to art and ideas."