them as his own, and then go to court tornprotect his purloined property. No, hernsimply acted within a rich but little appreciatedrntradition to which the majorityrnculture must learn to be sensitive.rnMiller, it should be noted, is white,rnwhich is not an inconsequential fact. Forrnit is whites who have led the fight to palliaternKing’s plagiarisms and who haverngiven new meaning to the term “whitewash.”rnIt is the moguls of the majorityrnculture in both the academy and thernpress who continue to praise ClayborncrnCarson of the King Papers Project forrnhis “honesty” and “integrity,” evenrnthough Carson learned about King’srnthefts in 1987 and admittedly lied aboutrnthe evidence (while accepting publicrnfunds as an editor) for three years thereafter.rnMiller, in his book, even floats thernabsurdity that plagiarizing was perhapsrnKing’s greatest gift to the country, forrnwithout stealing the words of whiternscholars and preachers for his articlesrnand speeches. King could never havernsold whites on the civil rights movement.rnJon Westling, John Silbcr, and PeterrnWood of Boston University, as well as allrnbut one member of the committee thatrnB.U. convened to examine King’s thesis,rnarc also white. As the committee concludedrnin its September 1991 report, becausernKing plagiarized only 45 percent ofrnthe first half of his dissertation and onlyrn21 percent of the second, the thesis remainsrna legitimate and “intelligent contributionrnto scholarship” about whichrn”no thought should be given to the revocationrnof Dr. King’s doctoral degree.”rnFunny, B.U. would give “no thought” tornrevoking King’s fraudulently earned doctorate,rnbut when its own dean of thernBoston University College of Communication,rnH. Joachim Maitre, stole numerousrnparagraphs from an essay by filmrncritic Michael Medved for his May 1991rncommencement address—a mere casernof “voice merging”—it demoted him tornthe ranks. S. Paul Schilling, who wasrnthe second reader of King’s dissertation,rnstates in a letter B.U. reproduces in its reportrnthat “it should be recognized thatrn[King’s] appropriation of the language ofrnothers does not entail inaccurate interpretationrnof the thought of writers cited”rn—as if King deserves praise for stealingrnaccurately—and notes that King wasrn”operating on a very crowded schedulernduring most of the work on his dissertation”rn—as if theft is excusable if one isrnbusy and in a hurry.rnThese embarrassing exonerations andrnrationalizations of King’s plagiarisms arcrnmore damaging to blacks than if B.U.rnhad revoked King’s doctorate. For byrnexcusing King’s pilferings—and inrnMiller’s case, by excusing them as “arnblack thing”—King’s apologists arerntelling black scholars everywhere thatrnthey shouldn’t bother doing their ownrnwork, or worse, that no black can reallyrnpull his own weight, write his own papers,rnor actually become a professionalrnlike white people can. When Miller arguesrnthat the accomplishments of blacksrnshould be held to different and clearlyrnless-demanding standards, that theyrnshould be discounted in light of thern”black oral tradition,” he takes a backhandrnto every black scholar honestly pursuingrnhis craft.rnPut simply, these specious attempts tornexonerate King are primarily “a whiternthing,” not a black. This is hardly surprising.rnThey appear, in fact, strikinglyrnsimilar to many other acts of penitencern—such as affirmative action, quotas,rnand the race-norming of governmentrnexams—that a guilt-ridden white communityrnhas felt duty-bound to performrnin expiation of racial sins, both real andrnimagined. But if they waft of somethingrnnew, of something characteristic of ourrnmore “sensitive” and enlightened present,rnthey just as surely smack of somethingrnvery old, something redolent ofrnthe very age we have tried to exorcisernand discredit. For these spurious rationalizationsrnof King’s wrongdoings arcrnnothing if not also a manifestation ofrnwhat Kipling termed the “white man’srnburden,” of that pernicious form of paternalismrnthat breeds lies and deceptionsrnand that oppresses the very people intendedrnto be uplifted.rnThis “whitewash” of King’s actionsrnhas many antecedents. It was the whiternmedia that appointed Jesse Jackson overrnRalph Abernathy to succeed King at thernhead of the civil rights movement. Theyrnwere the ones who publicized Jackson’srnlies about cradling the dying King, whornpublished the photographs of the bogusrnbloody shirt, and who since then havernburied all mention of this particular actrnof crass opportunism for which King’srnclosest followers never forgave Jackson.rnPhilip Nobile, whose expose in thernFebruary 23 issue of the Village Voice revealedrnthe extent to which Alex Haleyrnplagiarized and fabricated his “autobiography”rnRoofs, reminds us that it was anrnall-white, 17-man jury that awarded Haleyrnthe Pulitzer Prize for his stolen workrnof fiction. (Haley paid a $650,000 settlementrnin an unpublicized plagiarismrnsuit shortly before he died.) “If we blewrnthe Haley prize, as we apparently did, Irnfeel bad,” William McGill—former presidentrnof Columbia University and an exrnofficio presence on the 1977 PulitzerrnPrize board—told Nobile. “The answerrnto that question [whether race affectedrnthe board’s decision] is y e s . . . . We all laboredrnunder the delusion that suddenrnexpressions of love could make up forrnhistorical mistakes. . . . Of course, that’srninverse racism.”rnHustlers and hucksters like MalcolmrnX—”hustler” being Malcolm’s descriptionrnof himself in his “autobiography,”rnwritten by Alex Haley—and the ReverendrnAl Sharpton, who still claimsrnTawana Brawlcy was molested by whiternracists, are also largely the creation ofrnthe white media. As is the infamousrnfilm on World War II by Nina Rosenblumrnand William Miles called The Liberators,rnwhich purports that the “true”rnliberator of I litler’s most notorious concentrationrncamps was an all-black unit ofrnthe U.S. Army. PBS televised the filmrnnationally and hailed it as an invaluablernlook at a shamefully neglected aspect ofrnworld history; Hollywood plugged it asrnthe “best documentary of the year” andrnquickly nominated it for an AcademyrnAward; and yet the film has been quietlyrnpulled from circulation, as even blackrnveterans from the very unit supposedlyrnresponsible for the liberations have denouncedrnit as balderdash and blatantrnpropaganda.rnNietzsche believed “one may sometimesrntell a lie, but the grimace withrnwhich one accompanies it tells therntruth.” If our culture’s infatuation withrnlies is any indication, Nietzsche clearlyrnunderestimated the modern mastery ofrnthe straight face.rnTheodore Pappas is the managing editorrnof Chronicles and editor of thernforthcoming Martin Luther King, Jr.,rnPlagiarism Story, from which thisrnarticle is taken.rn42/CHRONICLESrnrnrn