It’s Martin Luther King Day in 2020 and it’s triggered a number of thoughts surrounding the man.
He didn’t give his life. He was murdered.
At the time of his death, Dr. King was still deeply unpopular … as reviled by white people then as former football quarterback Colin Kaepernick is today (for a similarly peaceful protest). But many of those same people will claim to honor King.
It’s easy to feel great about him now that he isn’t actively challenging your assumptions about justice, isn’t it?
I have a dream
This is an absolutely amazing speech, one that probably changed the course of history. But it’s the only words many people know of Dr. King’s and it’s the quote people use to either make him out to be some milquetoast “can’t we all just get along” type (to use the words of a later man named King nearly three decades later) or to try to co-opt his message as though it’s one you’ve believed all along.
A day on, not a day off.
I understand the sentiment behind this. Dr. King lived his life in service to the struggle and so we should continue the struggle against inequality and poverty.
But for black people, that struggle is ongoing and daily (and, largely, invisible, as much in the mental calculus we must do constantly as in reality). We’ve given enough service. So maybe I’mma take my day off, thanks.
His flaws disqualify him for honor? OK dude
I had one of those internet discussions with a fella who did not respect King because of his extramarital affairs. During the talk, said fella accused me of simply glossing over those sins because, in his opinion, I’m thinking, “I got mine, so forget all that other stuff.”
Whew, I had to take a breath.
“I got mine” equals the fact that I represent the FIRST FREE BLACK GENERATION in this country/colony’s entire history to not be actively oppressed by enslavement or Jim Crow. And this fella wants to say that’s somehow me just “getting mine?”
That I shouldn’t honor Dr. King whose struggle forced this entire nation to live up to its creed?
That this fella himself doesn’t also benefit by having the opportunity to interact with black people like myself without fear of the peak white supremacists who threatened not only my ancestors but any white person who dared treat them with human respect?
NO, fella. You can take enough seats for an entire game of musical chairs.
Dr. King saved this country
Recently, a trio of white supremacists got arrested for a violent conspiracy to ignite a race war.
It intrigues me that it’s always white folks who think a race war is imminent or inevitable. I do not really understand why.
Like, is this an admission that black Americans have a legitimate grievance with White America? And, furthermore, is this a self-incrimination on White America’s history of using violence and ONLY violence to achieve its ends?
That’s the genius of King’s movement. It was a more excellent way. It called out the best of this nation — its soul. And that’s why it succeeded.
It’s also why this “race war” lunacy is just that.
White America, do you really think you would WIN a race war? Honestly?
I mean, there are more of you than us. Sheer numbers don’t lie. And the election of President Donald Trump certainly shows that there’s a hardcore number of racists left among you (that’s a future post. And long overdue) that might be commited to such a war.
But the rest of you? Are you actually willing to kill your own soul?
Do you know what King did? He awakened the soul of America, whether she liked it or not. Forced her to look in the mirror and see she was NOT the sentinel of liberty. And that she needed to change or her hands would be irrevocably stained with the blood of a black generation — my parents’ — that would DIE before quietly enduring what my grandparents did.
That change is ongoing, even as I and my peers represent the first free black generation — and our white peers, the first to be free from systematic white supremacist indoctrination. And it’s thanks to King.
So yeah. Just some thoughts I’ve had on MLK on his day.
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