It’s Never Too Late

Posted 23 January, 2008 at 1:13 pm by Kevin
Filed Under Activism, Politics, Racism, U.S. Studies |

I didn’t write a MLK day post this year. I wanted to, but lately life’s been getting in the way of blogging. Besides, any day is a good day to write about the good Dr. King, right?

It’s never too late.

That is, as long as you’re not using him as a conveniently dead leader whose words you can twist and distort to make yourself feel better about whatever dumb thing it was you just said.

Or, as long as you aren’t diminishing Dr. King’s role in the Civil Rights Movement in a cynical political ploy.¹

*Note to the so-called “first black President”: you probably shouldn’t get caught dozing during a tribute to Martin Luther King. No, let me rephrase that. You shouldn’t be dozing period during a tribute to Martin Luther King. Yeah, I know you’re busy slandering Obama and all, but damn dude; drink some coffee or Red Bull or something. At least make it look like you care.²

As usual, I point you to my favorite King piece, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which, in agreement with Jake, I find contains one of the best prose sentences of all time:

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say “Wait.” But when you have see vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (howeverold you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

Why? Jake says it best:

The long periodic sentence is one of my favorites because the syntax embodies the thought — having to wait for the main clause of the sentence, the grammatical delay embodies and forces a kind of experience of the waiting King refuses. Frustrate your frustrators. King’s protest philosophy embodied in language.

Yep, that’s some brilliant stuff.

Carmen posted this video over at All About Race and I wanted to share as well. Watch it. Hear it. Learn it.

Ten Other Things Dr. King Said

1. I never thought I’d find myself hating politics as much as I do right now. The racism and sexism exhibited in this race is astonishing to me. And yet, I keep paying attention. [↩]
2. For the record, as much as I love Toni Morrisson, I’m still pissed about that “first black President” thing. And the CBC, I’m pissed at you too! [↩]

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