Facebook Publication Date: 1/16/2022 18:01
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2022
I wish this essay, written over a decade ago, was less relevant.
I wish that the concerns detailed in the piece were less burning.
But no.
My fears from a decade ago, that this would become just another holiday, a day where one could get a mani pedi or lay out on the beach day drinking without first faking a sore throat, have mostly been realized. That this day most profits butchers and nail techs and Molson/Coors is saddening.
That’s not entirely true. There will be dinners, sometimes even sponsored by police and the military; most often by the very corporations MLK confronted and critiqued, quoting his most benign phrases. There will be vigils maybe, holding candles and singing “Let There Be Peace On Earth” with masked faces and earnest eyes.
There will be parades, sure.
And barbecues. There will be barbecues.
But Tuesday will indeed come.
And the same corporations who cherrypicked his “I Have A Dream” speech, will continue their same practices. Agents of the State will still target Brown and Black people, either for prison populations or for cannon fodder. Segregation will continue; educational and medical disparities will endure.
People have asked me, when will you write another MLK piece?
My answer: when this one becomes even an iota less true.
Until then, read and be convicted and galvanized.
Have a meaningful Martin Luther King Day.
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