The 'social justice' jester who would be King 

The noble civil disobedience of yesteryear cheapened today

On the morning of Saturday 6/27, North Carolinian Brittany Ann Byuarim "Bree" Newsome scaled a South Carolina statehouse flagpole and removed the Confederate flag.

Once on the ground and in police custody, she smiled and mugged for photographers.

In a foolish statement, the NAACP cheered Newsome's action. She was wrongly compared to genuine giants of legitimate civil disobedience the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Henry David Thoreau.

I recall no press accounts of King striking poses for CBS cameras in the 1960s South.

Called for is a word about what "civil disobedience" really means. It is a specific concept, one with certain definition. It cannot be tortuously stretched or reinvented to accommodate 2015's frivolous, self-aggrandizing play-actors.

Civil disobedience was a profoundly legitimate tool with which American citizens pushed for the elimination of unjust laws that were systemically entrenched and were not being reconsidered and abandoned by processes then in place. 

By violating unjust statutes, putting their names on the acts, and accepting punishment King and others highlighted existing, legally codified inequality. 

Too, civil disobedience urged the full respect and recognition of American citizens who had been and still were denied the constitution's promise.

There was in that era argument over law, too. But the situations in 1964 and 2015 are dramatically different. In 1964, not all Americans had access to civil government. No redress of legitimate grievances could be assumed, given a system rigged against justice. 

Therefore, 1964 assertions that civil disobedience as thankfully practiced by King constituted violations of already sound law were without integrity. King and others could not realize needed change through the political process, as it was not open to meaningful participation by them. 

Civil disobedience was a logical option. And America is a better and more just nation, truer to the promise of its constitution, for their having taken the courageous stands they did.

But in 2015 Brittany Newsome has the political access denied King in 1964. She has no need for civil disobedience, nor was her grabbing down of a flag that was already in the legislative removal process at all in the grand tradition of King. 

The Rev. Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr and fellow noble citizens who practiced true civil disobedience were American heroes as much as any president or general. They were the voice of America's conscience, putting before all the truth of this nation's failures and demanding no more than that they be acknowledged as full participants.

Think of the changes that came in their civilly disobedient wake: The right to cast a ballot in elections and hold authoritative office. Public school desegregation. The right of every citizen to enjoy equal access to public accommodations. Protections and guaranteed safeguards in the legal system. Dignified visibility in entertainment fields including films, television, musical recordings, and the stage. The freedom to progress through the educational system including upper education, and to enjoy significant and contributory related careers.

Next to all of those necessary, noble, and far-reaching advances, shimmying up a flagpole - or, for that matter, donning a plastic Anonymous mask and hurling a brick through a Baltimore store window - can be seen as undeniably meager.

Kingly? Please.