Martin Luther King, Jr is a well known civil rights name in any part of our country. At least, one would think this way. Not here in the towns of Susquehanna valley. In the local paper, there was an a forum which asked various individuals to name a current civil rights leader. The answers were pretty amazing and scary.
There were some expected answers like Oprah Winfrey. The most disturbing answers were Fidel Castro and God.
Oprah Winfrey is said to be worth about $1.5 billion according to Forbes. She is not a Civil Rights leader. She is certainly a great entertainer and one of the most powerful and richest black woman in the world but she is certainly not a civil rights leader according to the paper's definition in comparison to Dr. King, Jr's accomplishments.
The sheer stupidity of the people around here ceases to amaze me. This is an example of the "bowl mentality" too. One of the individual mentioned that there is no issue of civil rights because God has kept every thing equal. This is a perfect example of a Homo Centralicus as I like to call these types of individuals from the Central PA. As long as an argument has God in it, the argument is won by the one who spoke of him.
On the other hand, Fidel Castro, called a dictator by many, is the last person who would be thought of as a Civil Rights leader. He is in Cuba, not in the US. The question is really about the leadership of the equality regardless of the race. The foundation of the Civil Rights movement is the treatment of individuals fairly regardless of their color of skin. The movement started due to in part by the treatment of blacks in the 1950's and 60's. So, to say Fidel Castro is to say "I'm a Homo Centralicus."
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