Yesterday I wrote on how Martin Luther King’s children’s squabbling and rent-seeking over rights to his words led to some cutting remarks on their behavior — in particular that people are not judging them by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, and that judgment looks bad for them.

That bitter irony and concise eloquence of the cutting remarks about them, using MLK’s words, reminded me of another eloquently cutting remark.

In 1997, Schindler’s List was first shown on television without commercial interruption, by Ford Motor Company. A political cartoon I find thought-provoking called “This Modern World” pointed out Henry Ford’s outspoken antisemitism; Hitler’s admiration of Ford, the only American mentioned in Mein Kampf; and Ford’s being awarded Germany’s Grand Cross, a medal given to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism. I think those were the details mentioned in the cartoon, but I also just got them from the Wikipedia page on Henry Ford. Whatever else Ford’s legacy, the page lists other instances of antisemitism and mutual support with Nazis, Hitler, Himmler, and others.

Anyway, I’m not trying to recount information on Ford, just that the bitterly cutting quotes two days ago about MLK’s heirs reminded me of the last line of that political cartoon:

So when they say Schindler’s List was brought to you by Ford, they mean it in more than one sense.

Ouch.

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