Oh Yeah - He Just Said That

While today is the day that we all like to recall the wonderful, dreamy things MLK said, let's not forget that he had the title "Reverend" in front of his name.

The Content of His Character

Note: This post was prompted by an email forward from a guy I knew years ago who has just discovered the Internet and now blasts "hilarious" emails to everyone. It was another in a long series of emails that basically feature Obama as the fried chicken watermelon guy who's gonna rape your white women.


Happy Birthday to my Dad, pictured here in Vietnam in his way-too-cool shades, rifle across his lap and out the window of a Huey helicopter, as a brother fuels the chopper up. The two guys in that photo above are Americans.

I was raised on military installations, where your neighbors are whomever the government randomly decides, and your schoolmates are of every nationality this country has ever welcomed to its shores. The US military is a microcosm of that "great society" we strive to be, and my Dad taught me early that a man's worth is measured by the honor he brings to his job or how he acts when no one is watching, and little else. If a white, black, red, brown or yellow man can have a good attitude while shoveling shit, (or fueling a helicopter) then he's a guy worth knowing.

There's been a bunch of talk this election season about race, and I think a lot of it comes from people who've never lived among other races. You've got your white liberals from predominantly white areas who want to vote for Obama. But whites who live in mixed-race areas have countered, "That's because you don't know what it's like to live among blacks!" And there are the whites and blacks who will vote for Obama BECAUSE he's black.

For many blacks, voting for Obama is a matter of identity and pride. I understand that. Who wouldn't be proud of Obama's candidacy, given our history? But for many whites, voting for Obama becomes a matter of proving to themselves and their friends that they are open-minded and free-thinking. That's wrongheaded and ignorant. Your anti-racism actually becomes racism in a roundabout way. And among the white talking-head class, you may have noticed that blacks don't get credit for weighing the character of the candidates. It is assumed that they'd vote for Obama just as soon as they'd vote for Flavor Flav. It's assumed that blacks vote en masse, no matter what. (And we haven't even touched the Black-Brown or Yellow-Black animosities and voting patterns of America.)

I go back to what my Dad taught me. We should measure a man on how he approaches his shitty job. Does he have a good attitude while doing the lowliest of low-paying jobs, like community organizing? Or does he expect favor and special treatment because of who he is and where he comes from, like maybe the privileged son of an admiral who crashes planes on a regular basis?

I was one of a few whites who attended a mostly black church in the Midwest for about a year. I went to the pastor's house for Christmas dinner. From the pulpit the pastor invited all who didn't have a place to enjoy Christmas dinner to come to his house. As the only white guy at the pastor's family dinner, I was out of place. I was interrupting. Everyone accepted me and everyone was nice, but I was the sore thumb sticking out. I had forced myself into a situation that would've been much more comfortable without me there. My point is that we are naturally more comfortable among people who are like us, which is why we've had racial tension since the beginning of time. It's the way we're wired. It's natural. We gravitate toward people who look like us. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

But America is different. When they wrote, "All men are created equal," they pried open a giant can of worms we are still unprepared to deal with. We're getting better, but we still have our neighborhoods where it is better for us if we look like most of the people who live there. It will likely always be that way, but Americans are free to mingle, free to get to know each other, free to find out that what exists under the skin is the same in all peoples. We should take ourselves outside of our comfort zones as often as possible. We may retreat to our comfortable areas at day's end after working eight hours with people of all colors, but we are better people for those eight hours.

Until we force Americans of different races to live together, as the US military does, we must learn to understand each other while recognizing and celebrating our differences. You don't need to move to a white neighborhood in order to "understand" white people, but when you approach that white person at work as a person and not a white person, you're on your way. Measure him by how he approaches the shittiest of jobs. What's his character? What's his attitude? Can you see him as your friend? Can you see him not as white or black, but rather as dishonorable or honorable?

This election has been eye-opening in the way it has polarized America, and while I respect and encourage a healthy debate on the issues, I'm quite done with the dishonorable, racist bastards of my country who will veil their arguments against Obama in terms of communism, socialism and terrorism, (I'm talking to you, Irish, racist, dishonorable jackass Sean Hannity) but whose real and fundamental discomfort with the man is his color. You can disagree with his policies, you can disagree with his approach to governing, you can disagree with the people he has brushed shoulders with in the past, but as long as you forward emails that suggest Obama is some Watermelon-Eating, Tap-Dancing, Shoe-Shining Nigger Antichrist, well, it shows me you don't really understand America at all.

He Was a Preacher Before Anything Else

You won't hear this message invoked today. We seem to want to remember only the nice things King said, while ignoring his warnings. If a national figure were to utter these sentiments today, he'd be labeled a crazy, evangelical Bible-thumper and cast aside as irrelevant. But rest assured, everyone will be honoring the memory of (Rev.) Dr. King today with lip service, conveniently forgetting some of the harder things he had to say.

Shot Rings Out in the Memphis Sky

Lest we forget, Ronald Reagan seriously dragged his feet on making today a holiday, saying something along the lines of "We already have enough federal holidays."

That's why this picture is so poignant, in which a defeated and not too pleased RR signs the bill while a triumphant Mrs. King looks on with what could be described as barely concealed disdain.

And in a subtle twist of irony, are there any historians out there who remember why King was in Memphis on that "early morning, April 4?" To march in solidarity with that city’s trash collectors, who had gone on strike for decent wages. And today, here in Jetpackland, my city's trash collectors, most of whom are black, do not have the day off. (pictured below) Perhaps they make decent wages. (U2's song is factually incorrect. Dr. King was shot in the early evening of April 4th, at approximately 5PM, on his way to dinner.)

In the Memphis hotel where King was shot, he was preparing a sermon for the coming weekend. It's title: "Why America May Go to Hell." No. Seriously.