This is a reprint of an article I wrote nine years ago for a San Diego progressive paper, The OB Rag, in which I decried the distortion of the legacies of the man we honor this weekend.

It’s still relevant. Unfortunately, if anything, it’s even more so, with both corporations, and even more troubling those in the political arena clamoring to attach themselves to what they feel are the more palatable parts of his legacy and his words, while sidestepping the words and stances that MLK took that deeply critiqued and challenged the status quo.

Honoring only the selective is not true honor. Distorted and deluded ‘remembrance’ in service not of the man, but for self serving and disingenuous purposes is not remembering, rather, it is nothing more or less than propaganda which subverts the discussion, and hijacks both the message and the way forward.

For our purposes here at Lace on Race, it is a reminder that the concepts with with we wrestle, and who we are as we wrestle, are vitally important. It is a reminder for us to not fall for easily swallowed memes, and to look with a critical eye at those who would attempt to shroud themselves in at best an incomplete, and at worst, intentionally sabotaged attempt to rewrite history.

There is no way we can walk toward the vision and the promise of MLK without being utterly clear eyed. Our resolve must be to remember and then to live out, with resilient resolve that promise. We are not here to revere a neutered god, as some would have us do, because to succumb to that is to defer and deny that promise. We are here to match truth with truth.

In a picture I recently came across, there is an image I had never seen before; of a sharp eyed MLK, playing pool, getting ready to put one in the corner pocket, sitting on the table, with the cue stick behind his back, down AF.

I love that. Savvy, down to earth, utterly confident, nobody’s fool. I feel that the MLK I strive to emulate is more embodied in that slice of his life than the defanged caricature that paints him in broad and incomplete strokes. And so we must be. Savvy, down to earth, nobody’s fools. Down AF. Audacious realism. Idealistic pragmatism. Bringing our whole selves into our work and into our walk.

Chalk your cue. Let us keep walking in truth.

In more than 40 years since MLK’s death, both the man and his central messages have been distorted by those who would utilize his legacy as a putative ‘brand’ rather than the challenge to power structures and institutions that it was. It is understandable that politicians and corporations would want to align themselves with at least part of the ideals he espoused and very real conviction with which he did it—doing so lends a legitimacy and a certain gravitas to what they do, while serving as something of a deflection to what they do, or more accurately don’t do, to truly honor and serve that vision.

This co-option has been seen with corporate public relations press releases and advertisements using Dr King’s name to sell everything from cornflakes to sports cars to beer; with politicians invoking his words, using his vision of a color-blind society to rationalize policies that often hurt and oppress the very populations MLK lost his life to stand with, and, most disturbing, with the military co-option of his birth as a neutered backdrop and cover of their actions, (such as targeted recruitment of minority and working-class students), which, to many, are antiethical to what MLK stood for.

This selective inattention to both the words as well as the context in which he said them, is at best uninformed, and at worst a cynical manipulation and distortion of what he did say. It is not enough to focus on only MLK’s “I have a dream” message and not discuss or attempt to acknowledge, much less internalize and implement the more revolutionary and paradigm-changing aspects. It is not enough to treat MLK as a venerated, yet oddly (and unnervingly) ignored lovable plush toy. To say that one ‘honors’ the man while disregarding his vision and ideas is the very definition of dis-ingenuousness.

We as a community, and as a country, can and must do better. To truly honor and respect MLK and his contributions to the America he sought to redeem with his life, and ultimately, with his death must be, at minimum to truly learn, acknowledge, internalize, and strive to live out daily—not only one day a year, but make it a driving force of our own lives, and an informer, indeed a driver, of our deepest convictions.

America can and must, both individually, and in our common life in this nation, search our hearts and examine our actions. We must take a good look at the stains of racism, classism, and indifference to what our choices have done to the environment, both here and worldwide, that blot our national collective soul. Then and only then, can we even come close to the ‘content of character’ we say we want, but do so little to actually achieve.

Return to The Bistro for Discussion.