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He was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior!!! [1]

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Date: 2023-01-16

He was NOT just “MLK”. Not some infectious and cute (and reductive) little nickname that we typically and affectionately assign to those who entertain and play ball for our amusement and escapism. He was...very much in the same sort of vein as was said by Ossie Davis in his eulogy of Malcolm X (upon his frighteningly similar murder), “Martin (too) was our shining prince!” Except in this usage of that phrase, “our” is by far NOT restricted to Black people only.

And 55 years after his brutal (and truly senseless) murder, we do an extreme disservice to the singular individual who had both the greatest and most positive vision of what America could ultimately become, and the greatest love and – eyes very much wide open – willingness to sacrifice even his very own life to try and get us there. Because seemingly with every passing year our collective willingness to continue addressing the things he demanded that we address – interracially – are instead growing more and more untouchable. And hand in hand with that, statistically white America (both R's and D's) is fighting more and more violently and mindlessly to hold on to racial segregation. To the point that in several statistical categories, segregation in worse now than it was at the time of the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act! (Not the least bit coincidentally, HERE is a link to a powerful article by John Blake, in honor of Dr. King, from CNN, that addresses that specific subject far more in depth.)

But in this particular context, and even more important than that, we are slowly but surely, after those intervening 55 years, reducing the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King to a one-note cardboard cut-out, and a sad caricature of simply “the I Have A Dream guy”. And no, I'm not just addressing Republicans endlessly attempting to appropriate the “I Have A Dream” speech for their own nefarious purposes. And attempting to reduce his entire existence to, “...the content of their character”, alone. Sadly, I'm also talking about how collectively little is also now known on the left about almost anything else he said or did beyond that one singular famous moment.

As the things that he demanded that we find the courage to talk honestly about (particularly regarding race) gradually grow more and more taboo, in millions of tiny and subtle ways, we drift backward. And as John Blake (whom I linked to above) says so eloquently, if we keep allowing ourselves to drift backwards, further and further into the racial patterns of the past, eventually we will lose Dr King's greatest gift of all to us. Hope!

And lastly this...

This is by far my favorite offering to those who summon the courage to want to know just a little something more beyond just the highly stereotypical “I Have A Dream”. It is called "Letter From Birmingham Jail". Written in 1963, it was an attempt by Dr King to address the seemingly incessant criticisms he was receiving from white clergymen and white moderates at the time.

It's been 55 years. Can we find the courage to stop the backwards drift, and re-initiate these kinds of “honest” conversations (again, interracially)??? Or is the “uncomfortableness” of it all going to eventually seal out fate?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/16/2147486/-He-was-the-Reverend-Doctor-Martin-Luther-King-Junior

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