Leonard Greene: With Trump's attack on DEI, he's the last one who should be talking about 'content of our character'

Leonard Greene, New York Daily News on Jan 27, 2025

Published in Op Eds

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That didn’t take long.

In about the time it takes to say “Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday,” President Donald Trump has launched a nuclear attack on everything the civil rights leader ever stood for.

In the days since Trump was inaugurated last week on the national King holiday, he has put a bullseye on migrants, birthright citizenship and anything associated with the letters DEI.

Can the Constitution be far behind?

“In his honor we will strive together to make his dream a reality,” Trump blasphemed in his inauguration speech. “We will make his dream come true.”

Trump was, of course, referring to the money line from King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, the one he delivered in stirring fashion on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during 1963’s March on Washington.

It is the speech that contains what is perhaps the most misappropriated excerpt in history American oratory.

King spoke of a “dream” in which his “four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

But conservatives like Trump have used those words to try to fool us into believing that one of the most famous and righteous Black men in this nation’s history was against affirmative action and anything that has to do with diversity, equity and inclusion.

They know better.

So do we.

In that same soaring speech, with Abraham Lincoln looking on, King called the Black man “an exile in his own land.”

In that same magnificent speech, with nearly a quarter of a million people looking on, King spoke about “the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”

In that same inspiring speech, with hundreds of thousands more, including President John F. Kennedy, watching on live television, King spoke about “the fierce urgency of now.”

“Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children,” he said.

Instead, Trump began purging federal workers in diversity, equity and inclusion roles as part of his promised war on “woke” culture.

“I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” he said during his inauguration speech.“We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit based.”

Merit based. Just like he achieved his success.

“Americans need the opportunity to get their foot in the door to achieve their dreams,” his opponent, Kamala Harris said during the campaign.

“Not everyone has the luxury of being handed $400 million on a silver platter like Donald Trump.”

Trump is the last person who should want to be judged by the content of his character.

Porn star flings and sexual assault suits aside, Trump, with a straight face, claimed over the summer that his Jan. 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” Rally was bigger than the estimated crowd of 250,000 who attended the March on Washington.

The House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection estimated that Trump’s speech drew 53,000 supporters.

Months later, after winning back the presidency in November, he returned to the scene of the crime to be sworn in under the Capitol rotunda before granting a full pardon to the treasonous rioters who tried to take over the government on his behalf.

Days earlier, then-President Joe Biden posthumously pardoned Pan African freedom fighter Marcus Garvey.

Content of our character.

As for Trump’s attack on DEI, King definitely would not have been on board. In the same year he delivered his March on Washington speech, King wrote about righting history’s wrongs in his book “Why We Can’t Wait.”

“The nation must not only radically readjust its attitude toward the Negro in the compelling present, but must incorporate in its planning some compensatory consideration for the handicaps he has inherited from the past,” King wrote.

“It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years.”

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