IMHO, a person more worthy of admiration than Jerry Falwell also died on Tuesday. Yolanda King, Martin Luther King’s eldest daughter, passed away at the too-young age of 51 (she was only a month older than me- ). I don’t know much about her, but I can imagine that growing up with the enormous shadow cast by her famous father couldn’t have been easy, but she lived a life of grace, compassion and love for her fellow wo/man.



RIP, Ms. King.

Please, Jerry was a self made man. Yolanda simply lived off Daddy's legacy. Two days ago no one on this site would have recognized the name Yolanda King.

Yolanda King was a staunch supporter of civil rights for all, and a good woman. One admires her refusal to rest on her laurels, and her willingness to oppose injustice for all people.

Speak for yourself, deng because you're lousy at trying to speak for anyone else.

Jerry Falwell was a self-made man all right. A self-made bigot of the first rank. If you want to celebrate his wasted life and times there's a thread open to do it in. Don't come over here demonstrating how little you know about Yolanda King because you share Falwell's hatred for her father.

King -- an actor, speaker and producer -- was the founder and head of Higher Ground Productions, billed as a "gateway for inner peace, unity and global transformation." On her company's Web site, King described her mission as encouraging personal growth and positive social change.

King also was an author and held memberships in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -- which her father co-founded in 1957 -- and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her death comes more than a year after the death of her mother, Coretta Scott King.

She was the most visible and outspoken among the Kings' four children during this year's Martin Luther King Day in January, the first since her mother's death. At her father's former Atlanta church, Ebenezer Baptist, she performed a series of solo skits that told stories including a girl's first ride on a desegregated bus and a college student's recollection of the 1963 desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama.

She also urged the audience to be a force for peace and love, and to use the King holiday each year to ask tough questions about their own beliefs on prejudice.

"We must keep reaching across the table and, in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, feed each other," King said. link

Yolanda didn't "live off" off of her father's legacy. She worked to perpetuate and bring about Dr. King's dream of equality and racial harmony, unlike that of your segregationist man-crush whose dismal legacy is one of spreading hatred, division, intolerance and a insane lust to turn America into a theocracy.

While Falwell railed against "the homosexual agenda," Yolanda, to her credit, was openly progressive and supportive of the GLBT community.

In 2005, King presented the Gavin Newsom Visionary Award at the Fourth Annual Equality Awards & Gala to the California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for their support of marriage for gays and lesbians. King was known for her support of lesbian and gay civil rights and was a popular speaker at LGBT events.

She was among 187 protestors in 2000 that went to jail to make an impression on the United Methodists and the Archbishop of Canterbury in Cleveland, Ohio in a civil disobedience action seeking equal treatment from religious groups for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. link

A bad man dies one day and a good woman dies the same night. It seems God has a sense of symmetry.

NT my friend, I'm not entirely sure about the symmetry. The bad man was 73-years-old. The good woman was only 51 - young by today's standards.

Death is a brutal, and final. Getting cut off in the prime of life, as was Yolanda King, is a tragedy.

Billy Joel wrote and recorded a song entitled "Only the Good Die Young" in 1978.

The title, if not the lyrics, fits.

R.I.P. Yolanda King

These are the very comments that incite "america's debate riots" and drive threads off target. I don't know that his statement was appropriate, but surely doesn't warrant comments like these.

Yolanda King seemed to have a fruitful life, even if she died young, it seems as if she didn't leave a vacuum filled legacy. It appears (at least from what I can read) that she left work that people will remember. That's admirable and hopefully someone will step into her shoes and continue the work.

That's too bad, and so young too. My thoughts and prayers go out to the King family, who have been through so much grief, and given so much to this world.

If it's possible to see anything good in someone's passing, I'd say to you ladies to make sure you have your heart checked. Cardiovascular disease is not just a male problem.

No, actually these are the very comments that incite America's Debate riots (whatever the hell that is) and drive threads off target.



Perhaps you don't want to make the determination whether his statement was appropriate, but you don't seem to have any trepidation in determining my response was not. Then again, defending the reputation and honor of Black women under attack isn't an ability you've ever exhibited, Aevans176.

Well... in one of your posts you make mention that some people say "too bad they left", and others say "good riddance".

In my opinion, calling someone a biggot (or at least saying he hated the America's if not the world's most influential civil rights leader) is a little different. Saying that Yolanda hung on the shirt tails of MLK isn't necessarily nice, but I can't really argue that. Does it negate that she seemed to have a good cause in her heart and seemed to do good for the world and America overall? Not at all....

Falwell was a nut job in many ways. Yolanda King apparently worked her whole life to make our world better. However, Falwell was a self made nut-job, and Yolanda's last name probably did help her cause.

"I do question the sincerity of people like the Reverend Martin Luther King..." Jerry Falwell
How exactly would you interpret that quote? Leaving aside that the man was such an unrepentant bigot that he would use a national disaster as a chance to promote hatred.
And yet none of the people whining about how terribly uncivil it is to say mean things about a dead bigot have anything to say against comments like that. Curious isn't it?
We can't tell the truth about a bigot who killed himself through the sin of gluttony without people whining about it, yet a woman who did no one any harm and did the world a lot of good can be badmouthed with impunity.

I see a lot of Lisa Marie Presley in Yolanda. Maybe a little bit more conservative but someone who could not step out from the shadow of her father. Was it realistic to expect her to? Maybe not.

I agree with deng, this is not a newsworthy woman who should not be glorified. If it wasn't for her father's name she'd be a nobody.

A nobody who has the misfortune of having the press follow her around hoping to see some reincarnated shade of greatness. The whole thing stinks and is distasteful IMGO.

Hmmm, let's see:

A 73 year old man dies, its the "judgement of God".

A 51 year old woman dies, not a word of judgement.

The irony is staggering.



May Yolanda Rest in Peace, both with her Father and her father.

Since the only comment remotely resembling your strawman was mine, allow me to reiterate for the slower among you: That comment was a reflection of comments Falwell made. Yolanda King never made comments like that, so it wouldn't make sense to hold her accountable for them.

This thread got off-topic on the second post.



http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...st&p=215312

So why wasn’t it nipped in the bud before it became an exercise in comparative anatomy of corpses?

This is about Yolanda King. Let’s not soil it with needless and irrelevant comparisons.

To try to get things back on track here’s a tribute from someone called Elyssa on Substitute Teacher’s Chalkboard. Ill bet there are hundreds of tributes that could be linked to this thread.



http://teachers.net/mentors/substitute_tea...7.06.09.13.html

That is quite possibly one of the most unnecessarily hateful things I've seen posted yet. What do you mean "step out from the shadow of her father"? She continued to pursue her father's dream - how is that a bad thing? She campaigned to bring awareness of heart disease and stroke to people - how is that a bad thing? She made a positive contribution to society - how is that a bad thing? I'd say she was more of a somebody than some other folks I could mention.

And who are you to say who or what is newsworthy? Feel free not to participate in the thread if you don't believe the topic is worth responding to. I do it all the time.

I agree with DG. I can think of someone else who wouldn't be where he is without Daddy's name, influence and money. Any guesses?

Regardless of what you or deng think, Yolanda King was a person, not a clone of her father.

Here's an illustration.

How many families have there been where a grandparent, a parent and a child or several children were all doctors.

To parody the Geico commercial, “does having a parent who is a doctor make the child less a doctor”? I don’t think so.

I think Yolanda King's accomplishments stand on their own, even if they were not always on the marquee.

The "shadow of her father" aspect is, harsh as it may be, true. Little that Yolanda King has done, worthy as it may be in its own right, raises her to anywhere near the stature to make her passing a national news event. More people recognize Tom Poston, who passed recently, than Yolanda King. Whether fair or not, such is the case.

Who is Tom Poston?

Anyway, RIP Yolanda. I knew of you.

I followed her career, and, had she been born of an age that needed the same struggles as her father, I think she would have stepped up- her life certainly seems to make it seem like she would commit at the same level as her father- history just didn't force her to do it.

That being said- she didn't let her father's death become HER only sacrifice either, she went to school, and she worked hard to continue her father's legacy- and worked and worked, all the time, possibly to her early death, knowing how workaholics are.

It is hard to find a person she has done something BAD too, unlike that other dude, that CALLED on others to discriminate, hate and humiliate, she called for tolerance, love and inclusion.

That makes all the difference in the world Ms Yolanda King- we need more wonderful ladies like you in this world, quietly working hard day by day to help others- RIP and my prayers to her family.

Tell me the likelihood of reading of her exploits in first person detail on major news outlets if her name was something other than King? Local paper sure. Local community outlet, maybe. Reuters? Yeah right.

There is very little emotion attached to the observation DG, either for or against. I'm not fond of sensationalism as it amplifies and distorts the original subject by retelling itself and evolving. And yes it is happening in this thread whether you want to admit it or not. In Falwell's case the media worked against him with only the individual personal experience seperating itself out as the lone wolf response from Carlito. His post defined Falwell as something other than a bad guy. Do I like him? Not particularly but his post is a classic case of the individual being overshadowed by the reputation. This is what I meant by stepping out of the shadow.

The point is celebrity obits have a habit of exaggerating a person to the point where sometimes the end result is unrecognizable from the original. Facts blur and suddenly Yolanda's accomplishments are no longer independant from her father's. Time does that. Suddenly Yolanda the person becomes dehumanized into MLK's daughter. Individuality tends to get lost in celebrity cases. I'm skeptical of emotional displays of grieving here as they can morph into soap opera melodramas in the blink of an eye. As in something less than genuine. Anna Nicole ring a bell?

The media loves to pull emotional triggers, and easily identifiable people are efficient vehicles for that - err hook, line, and sinker.

In Yolanda's case she's viewed as a care-giver and an activist but time always blurs the facts from the parent onto the child in these celeb cases. Always. Only her personal friends will remember the defining traits of her character. This is the curse of celebrity deaths and why I find them so very distastful when thrust into the public spotlight because they trigger unnecessary emotion, sometimes for and other times against. At best they can live out their lives as ordinary people, in Daniel Smith's case they can end more tragically, with the common thread of being carved into bite-sized infotainment for the masses. They are none of our business yet others allow their name to be used for commercial purposes. Has Yolanda been commercialized? Not yet. But I'm certain of the outcome, so much so I feel it is safe to talk about it in the past tense.

When Yolanda's story makes it to the tabloids, and trust me it will get there, her accomplishments, her insights, and her dignity will be thrust into the same space that shares itself with UFO sightings. Now how respectful does that sound? Celebrity reputations do not die at one's death, they grow, with good and evil becoming more of a semantic than anything else. Sound cynical? How does realistic grab you?

Offer her the dignity of privacy and the safe passage into oblivion.

When I see, "To parody the Geico commercial, "does having a parent who is a doctor make the child less a doctor"? I don't think so." I doubt very much her deeds will outlive the name, especially coming from such a cultural icon. Wishful thinking at best BOF. And since we are on the subject of parodies have you considered the numerous marketers who are going to pressure the family to get the rights to the King name?

In fact if a charity is made in her name, which has a 50/50 chance of happening, her name will be fully commercialized as a trademark for social endeavors which may sound nice at first but could easily devolve into something trite. Think KFC chicken. The Colonel. ICON!! Will it be the well managed like the Betty Ford clinic or are they simply selling the name?

Paris Hilton also has accomplishments. She would never have had those opportunities had she not been a Hilton. Yolanda is only noteworthy as the child of Saint Martin. Kind of like most of the Kennedy children.