Blah, blah, blah

The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. for nearly five years from 1963 until his assassination in 1968. After approving the wiretaps, attorney general Robert Kennedy specifically requested to be personally informed about any findings.

After his “I have a dream” speech, the FBI called him, the “most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”

When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one step further, sending him an insulting and threatening note anonymously. A draft was found in the FBI files years later. In it the FBI wrote, “You are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that.” The letter went on to say, “The American public … will know you for what you are — an evil, abnormal beast,” and “Satan could not do more.”

It really begs the question of what was blacked out, a friend points out. If all of that horribleness was deemed acceptable, what could be so bad to warrant the censorship?

The letter’s threat was ominous, if not specific: “King you are done.” Some have theorized the intent of the letter was to drive King to commit suicide in order to avoid personal embarrassment. “King, there is only one thing left for you to do,” the letter concluded. “You know what it is … You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.”

A recent study from the University of Wisconsin hoped to answer this timely question as Clinton campaigns for the presidency, “Are women voters more likely to vote for female candidates?”
Answer: Not just because they’re women. Obviously.

Women generally voted based on information about the candidates and their positions on important issues: “Evidence suggests women voters are often more likely to support women candidates than are men but that this support is not automatic and is often based on additional considerations beyond candidate sex.”

The relationship was significant but was mediated by many other factors. And in fact, women were no more influenced by sex identity than men were. [and what about people who would not fit into those categories?]
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