Contributed by: filbert Wednesday, January 16 2008 @ 09:07 AM CST
Charles Steele Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Tuesday that the organization would make its point economically if Frances Semler, a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, remained on the park board.
Steele said that Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s appointment of Semler, an opponent of illegal immigration, was part of a pattern of racial insensitivity.
“We are asking all civil rights organizations to stay out of Kansas City. We are going to shut you down,” Steele said. “… We will take all the monies away from here. … Nobody should come to Kansas City.”
The boycott would include marches, Steele said, but beyond that, “I believe in the element of surprise.”
I dunno, but bald threats do not strike me as a particularly Christian approach to conflict resolution.
So, you ask, what is the intolerable atrocity for which these good Christians want to shut down a city?
Here it is: one member of the municipal parks board thinks that people who come into this country should follow the law in order to do so. This is enough to bring the SCLC to decidedly un-Christian thoughts.
Yeah, there’s racial insensitivity going on here, and if Mr. Steele wants to start rooting it out, he should start with a good long look at the guy in the mirror.