Sharpton: 'People Should Think Twice Before They Invite Michigan Gov. Snyder To a King Day Celebration'

December 12th, 2012 10:15 AM

Is wanting workers to have the right to choose if they're going to join a union racist?

Apparently it is according to MSNBC commentator Al Sharpton who concluded a Huffington Post rant about Michigan's newly enacted right to work laws Wednesday, "People should think twice before they invite Gov. Snyder to a King Day celebration in three weeks."

This was preceded by the following:

On Nov. 6th, Americans sent a clear message that we are not interested in protecting the rich at the expense of the rest of the country. But for some reason, there are those -- like Gov. Snyder and the Republican legislature of Michigan -- that are still only concerned with corporations and the wealthy. The people of Michigan and around the country will not stand for it. Whether it's a statutory initiative, a veto referendum or an outright recall election, we must take action in Michigan and anywhere workers' rights are under threat. There has been far too much sacrifice to secure our ability to collectively bargain and create fairer working conditions for us to give up now. We have a duty and a right to fight back.

As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it:

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work'. It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone ... Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.


That's what King said more than 50 years ago.

Would he still believe it today given the disparity in job creation in right to work versus "union" states?

The Washington Post reported in September 2011 that in the previous ten years, "right-to-work states have better employment numbers on the whole."

Might this change King's mind about this issue if he were alive today?

Assuming it didn't, would that be cause for not inviting right to work proponents to King Day celebrations?

More and more it seems today's liberal is increasingly less inclusive and tolerant of opposing views.

Yet they consider themselves "progressive."