EVEN BIGOTS SHOULD COMMEMORATE DR. KING’S LEGACY

First, a disclaimer: I loathe writing this column.

Why? Because I believe that having a holiday to commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King is a no-brainer. Because I believe that civic entities should signify the observance with an official holiday. I have always celebrated Dr. King’s life and have forever encouraged others to do so. I have hosted Dr. King’s widow in my home, and I have chaired interfaith services in his memory in three cities.

I celebrate Dr. King not only out of empathy to the African American cause, but because Dr. King’s legacy is about universal ennoblement, the dignity of body, mind and spirit that is the God-granted gift of all Creation. Thus, the following column is not intended to preach to the choir or perhaps even the fence-sitters.

No, this column goes out to the bigots, the folks who shamelessly say that Dr. King was just a philandering communist, that “the n****rs” do not deserve “their own” holiday, that Dr. King’s legacy was self-aggrandizing deceit, the ones who bluster all this transparent baloney about how “another” holiday would break the community’s economic back.

This is what I want to say to the bigots, however much I chafe at making the argument: If you think African Americans are ignorant, shiftless, uppity, intimidating, scrounging for a free lunch, hateful of white folk, immoral . . . then you could do a lot worse than Dr. King as the sine qua non African American role model. In fact, you should be delighted that Dr. King’s legacy and not someone else’s is, at least in principle, still the primary guiding light of African American self-determination. You should do everything in your power to rivet into place Dr. King as the yardstick by which African American parents should measure their children’s achievements and by which the quality of men and women who contend for leadership of the African American community should be judged. You should be eager to declare Dr. King’s immortality through a holiday.

After all, otherwise you might one day wind up with demands for holidays honoring far less illustrious role models, like Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, convicted murderer Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Snoop Dogg or P. Diddy. And, for God’s sake do not forget that Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIGG are already dead and just aching for martyrdom to consecrate their memories.

Make, as I have, an extensive study of Dr. King’s utilization of Biblical passages in his pronouncements. I have never even once seen a single passage twisted for venal, violent or self-enriching purposes. Can we say the same of Jesse Jackson?

Then, force yourself to read Dr. King’s I Have a Dream soliloquy. Do you see an appeal for African American dominance over white America? Do you see an exhortation to take anyone else’s piece of the American pie, or to “take” anything at all? Do you see anything about African American’s deserving a free lunch or shunning the societal mainstream to establish a belligerent separatist nation? Do you see anything but a call for equal opportunity and interracial harmony? Can we say the same of Louis Farrakhan or the sordid legacy of H. Rap Brown? And, then also admit that Dr. King’s legacy is the very antithesis of the sloth, ignorance, crack, cop-killing, and “bitches and ‘ho’s” preached by the prophets of hop-hop and rap.

Anyone who purports to dictate to another person whom his/her role model should be is presumptuous. Yet, we have the right to editorialize and not capitulate to the nihilism of “Hey, whoever turns you on.” White Americans have every reason to be exhorted that George Washington, for all his human frailties, deserves our adulation over vipers like David Duke. And, African Americans have every reason to be exhorted that Dr. King, for all his frailties, deserves to be celebrated as a role model over Jesse Jackson and Snoop Dogg.

Personally, I see Dr. King’s legacy is an ideal to which all honorable people should aspire. . But, to the bigots, I would leave the following admonition: A holiday to commemorate the legacy of Dr. King is the most desirable of all alternatives, if not for yourselves, then for African Americans, whom you foolishly see as inferior, even subhuman. At least Dr. King tried to steer the ship of state out of disaster, rather than into it. If Dr. King is not exalted as a role model, which far less worthy model might be ordained to take his place? As far as I am concerned, we would be hard pressed to do better. If you are a bigot, at least admit that we could do a lot worse.

There. Now I have said it, and ugh, I feel the need to take a scalding shower.