In an article published last Friday ("Polarizing Belafonte to deliver 2007 MLK speech," Jan. 12), professors Judith Byfield and Giavanna Munafo defended their selection of Harry Belafonte as the keynote speaker for Dartmouth's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration. The main justification of the selection of Belafonte was that "his profession fit with the celebration's art-related theme, 'Lift Every Voice.'" I certainly admire Belafonte for many things -- first and foremost, his activism during the civil rights movement. However, many of the comments he has made over the last few years lead me (and many others) to believe that he is an inappropriate choice for such an important occasion.
Although I would like to see more controversial figures brought to campus, there is a sharp contrast between mainstream controversial figures and Belafonte. The article quotes Byfield as saying, "King spoke out too. Not everyone supported him or the issue that he raised. We don't invite people just because we don't have the entire campus's consensus."
I agree with Byfield's latter point, but I think that Belafonte's comments are supported by a very small minority of the Dartmouth community. I also think comparing his recent controversial comments with those of King in the 1960s is a tenuous stretch.
Although Belafonte spoke yesterday, I want to draw attention to some of the ludicrous comments he has made in the past. As referenced in The Dartmouth, Belafonte referred to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as "house slaves" in a 2002 interview on a Los Angeles radio station. In the context of the larger quote, his comments are even more striking. Belafonte said of Powell, "There's an old saying in the days of slavery. [...] You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him.... [W]hen Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."
This is surely not a constructive comment but a cheap shot at those whose ideologies severely differ from Belafonte's agenda. I certainly disagree with most of what the Bush administration has done over the past six years, but Belafonte's comments over the last few years offend even me. There is a certain level of civility required for public discussion, and Belafonte's comments are far from that standard.
Most famously, Belafonte appeared at a Jan. 8 rally in Venezuela with President Hugo Chavez and called President George W. Bush "the greatest tyrant" and "the greatest terrorist in the world." He also, in a Jan. 30 interview with "Democracy Now," reiterated this claim, calling various members of the Bush administration "terrorists." Belafonte frequently compares the Department of Homeland Security to the Gestapo of Nazi Germany, an example of hyperbole at its worst. In an Aug. 6, 2005 interview with the conservative "Cybercast News Service," Belafonte responded with the following when asked about the impact blacks had on the Bush administration's relationship with the African-American community: "Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich."
I had difficulty believing that Belafonte ever would have said this until I saw a video of the interview. Not only is this a false statement, but Belafonte's words are shock tactics at their worst. It is an attempt to shock the viewer into a comparison between our government and Nazi Germany, even though current American politics do not sink to depths even remotely like those of 1930s Germany.
In the same interview, Belafonte talked multiple times about "black tyrants" in the Bush administration, and when the white reporter asked him who the "black tyrants" were, Belafonte responded with "you." I need to reemphasize my own disgust with the Bush administration in order to make it clear that I have no problem with Belafonte's strong comments against the president. However, when the comments start comparing our government to that of Nazi Germany, the dialogue has gone to waste.
Belafonte has lived a long and generally exemplary life, and it is sad that he has let his politics get in the way of the great work he has done. Allowing him to keynote the College's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration brought unneeded controversy to the celebration of a man and a cause venerated by almost everyone. Not only is this unfair to the legacy of King, but it attaches his name to a radical agenda in many ways against the spirit of his work.