Dr. Alveda King: Joe Biden Has No Business Invoking MLK’s Legacy for His Own Ends

“Even Dr. King’s assassination did not have the worldwide impact that George Floyd’s death did,” Biden recently declared. Once a master of stirring America’s emotional hysteria, Joe is now overplaying the race card.

According to former Vice President Joe Biden, the assassination of my uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was less impactful to the racial justice movement than the death of George Floyd. This statement, Biden’s attempt to frame sympathies for these two men as a contest, is divisive. It is an affront to all Americans who care about racial justice and societal healing. We see you Uncle Joe.

While sheltering away in his basement, Biden can no longer hide his own racist past, which includes his role in opposing the desegregation of public schools during the 1970s, and his championing the unjust racially charged 1994 crime bill that destroyed thousands of Black families. Biden’s racist history has helped create many of the problems that have motivated the George Floyd protests. He’s attempting to deflect our eyes away from his own sins.

MLK never played the race card. He knew that violence only serves to undermine the message of peaceful demonstrations; violence sets back the cause of justice. President Trump understands this, as well, which is why he just signed an executive order that implements positive reforms to policing and criminal justice while insisting that law and order must be maintained.

POTUS is steadfast for the cause of justice. Long before the recent protest began, the President signed the FIRST STEP Act, which fixes racially discriminatory sentencing disparities that Joe Biden championed during his time in the U.S. Senate. The historic criminal justice reform legislation also makes it easier for nonviolent offenders to earn early release credits for good behavior while setting them up to successfully reintegrate into society without having to return to a life of crime. Already, thousands of inmates, most of them black, have been released from unjust prison sentences thanks to the FIRST STEP Act.

Joe Biden, conversely, spent decades supporting the very injustices that the FIRST STEP Act was designed to correct — policies that put a generation of young black men behind bars rather than empowering them to succeed in life without resorting to crime.

The Trump administration has also taken actual steps to ensure that justice is done for George Floyd, opening a civil rights investigation into Floyd’s death and ordering the Attorney General and the Justice Department to expedite it.

President Trump has noted that “equal justice under the law must mean that every American receives equal treatment in every encounter with law enforcement, regardless of race, color, gender, or creed.” I humbly add here the born and unborn.

“And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I believe that if MLK were here today, he would remind the American people to work together for everything that unites us; not peddle hatred and racial division.

These words from President Trump convey hope:

“To all of the hurting families, I want you to know that all Americans mourn by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain. We’re one nation, we grieve together, and we heal together. I can never imagine your pain or the depth of your anguish. But I can promise to fight for justice for all of our people.”

We must understand and support President Trump’s position of leadership. By condemning chokeholds, while at the same time supporting justice, law, and order, he is striking a righteous balance that will help to heal our country.

President Trump will never abandon American law enforcement officers, the overwhelming majority of whom are good and decent people who are firmly committed to protecting and improving the communities they serve. Most victims of crime in underprivileged neighborhoods are black Americans. We are among the people who need police protection the most — now more than ever.

Elected officials who have turned a blind eye to the lawlessness on our streets are directly to blame for the most violent day on record in the City of Chicago. The overwhelming majority of police officers are selfless public servants devoted to stopping crime from ravaging our communities; but they can’t be everywhere at once, especially in the midst of widespread rioting.

Meanwhile, Biden is trying to straddle the fence by equivocating on calls to defund the police, alienating both far-left activists within his Party and ordinary Americans who support law and order.

President Trump is standing up for the black community, and for all Americans, by restoring law and order. From day one, POTUS has advanced the interests of black Americans through criminal justice reform and economic empowerment.

The peaceful protests over George Floyd’s death — as well as the violence perpetrated by activists taking advantage of those demonstrations — have only redoubled our President’s resolve on all those fronts. As Congress struggles to overcome partisan gridlock, for instance, the Trump administration is implementing common-sense reforms to American policing that will address the core complaints raised by concerned citizens in recent weeks.

MLK’s death helped to turn the tide of public opinion away from discrimination and racism, and toward greater justice and unity. George Floyd’s death is clearly inducing us to take additional steps toward societal reconciliation. But that’s no reason for Joe Biden to denigrate the impact MLK’s life — and death — had in this country and around the world. Stop race baiting, “Uncle Joe.”

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved

Alveda King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and daughter of King’s younger brother, Rev. A. D. King. She is a prominent American author, pro-life and civil rights activist and minister. She is a Fox News channel contributor and once served as a Senior Fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a Washington, D.C. think-tank. She is a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives and the founder of Alveda King Ministries.