On the way home from a meeting with The Great Him (which may be classified as an ass whoopin' by some lol), I turned on my radio to listen to a live radio broadcast from a party in ATL. I love to listen to the mixes, so I turned my radio up. And just as quickly turned it all the way down when I heard:


"I see you birthday girl! Shake it! The Dream is still alive! MLK 2011!"


*Nellie Quander level side-eye here* (Happy Founder's Day, Sorors!)


Okay, pause. So all I have to do is shake my ass and Dr. King's dream is alive? When in doubt, go to the club. I'll make a note.



I've always wondered why Dr. King's likeness and blackness are so easy to water down. King was larger than some southern pacifist preacher man who gladly took ass whoopings in the name of peace and prosperity. King was a visionary. King was a radical. At the time of his untimely death, Martin Luther King was about to blow the lid off racial identity politics and economic disparity.


When we commemorate Dr. King in the form of a holiday, are we further marginalizing King's complexity and humanity? I can't help but think about how we celebrate this holiday, not in earnest, but gladness that we do not have to go to work Monday. While I applaud those organizations who participate in activities that reignite King's aspirations, I am troubled by the majority of us who only see King as a one-dimensional, "ahistorical" figure. I say a"historical" because he is not contextualized to reflect a time period of black liberatory activism. Instead, King is Hallmarked and gift carded as a black Santa-esque figure who waves to the kids and pats them gingerly on the head. 


C'mon, son. Let's get real here.


To view him as incapable of reflecting frustration, anger, and unhappy feelings surrounding his purpose and actions as a man of color is SAFE. Please read (in its entirety) King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. If that's not an angry black man, I don't know what to tell you.


I'm particularly struck by our engagement with King and his legacy in this contemporary moment of the black experience. With all the talk surrounding postracial identity, privilege, and the like, I would argue that people of color too succumb to the postracial heralding of Martin Luther King, Jr. We celebrate him through an instutional, racialized lens of blackness. Instead of keeping his philosophies relevant and in conversation, he's retired to a holiday and statue.


Aaron McGruder MLK episode is powerful and relevant in ways too numerous to dedicate to a single post. What I find especially striking is McGruder's attempts to negotiate and subvert the tricky space of black consciousness and (white) capitalistic hegemony. King is unvoluntarily appropriated for profit - he repeatedly complains about not being consented for the use of his likeness and name - and neglected when he attempts to situate his fight into a contemporary setting.


The now infamous "Nigga" speech King delivers at the church "party" at the end of the episode ( a whole 'notha level of a come to Jesus meeting!),  hammers the markers of blackness and black consciousness that are representative of 20th and early 21st century African Americans. The contamination of these portals of blackness - i.e. BET, the black church, etc. buffer not only King's initial efforts but those of the Civil Rights era as well. Because the tangible barriers of race that were prevalent in King's discourse have altered or are obsolete, King resorts to "niggadom" to connect with his audience and force them to confront their consciences and actions.  


King's retort, "I won't get there with you, I'm moving to Canada" is also significant. The allusion to Canada as the promise land reaches back to the American slave era and runaway slaves. What Canada means to African Americans in this particular moment of American history, however, is up for discussion.


Happy MLK day, folks.