Candidate regrets ‘misguided’ nod to King

B.C. Green party candidate Mark Neufeld has apologized for his “misguided attempt to share the inspiration” of Martin Luther King Jr. in his campaign speech in Victoria earlier this week.

Neufeld re-enacted the final speech of the civil rights leader Wednesday before a crowd that included David Suzuki.

“It was my intention to honour one of my heroes and instead, I was deeply insensitive,” Neufeld wrote in a Facebook post Friday. “It was a stunning lack of awareness to think that I could somehow honour Dr. King in this way. Instead of honouring him and his work, I hurt many people.”

In his speech Wednesday, Neufeld said, “I’m not fearing anyone! ... Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Greens!”

The speech mimicked the words, Baptist cadence and Georgian vernacular of the I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, King’s final public address before his 1968 assassination.

Neufeld described standing atop Victoria’s Mount Douglas (using the mountain’s indigenous name, Pkols), from where it’s possible to see the B.C. Parliament Buildings.

“I went to the mountaintop, y’all! I went to Pkols, y’all!” he said.

Where King’s speech described a “promised land” of racial equality that he wouldn’t live to see, Neufeld spoke of a “promised land” of increased Green legislative representation.

But in his Facebook post, Neufeld said he regrets that his actions “provided a distraction from the visionary policies of the party.”

“One of the core principles of the B.C. Greens is respect for diversity,” Neufeld wrote. “We need to strive to improve respect for diversity with every part of our being, as we are far from an equal society. I am deeply sorry that I did not represent this principle in my speech.”