Dr. King’s Dream Today A Nightmare – A View From 2007

The following is the second part in my examination of the black progress as a legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. I am using a nationally syndicated article I penned in 2007 to set the stage for the third part to my examination, which will be published January 29, 2019. As with the first part of this examination, I encourage you to maintain your focus regarding black advancement on the year 2007 and backward. Focusing beyond that year, will disrupt the conclusion I present a week from now.

Jan. 15, 2007, is the annual commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Signs, posters, radio/TV ads and the all-inclusive holiday sale will remind us that it’s time for America, as a nation, to remember the injustices he fought.

Preachers will preach special sermons, teachers will have special lesson plans, and politicians, coupled with the usual colliers of immiseration, will pose for photo-ops. All will reference how he fought for the freedom, equality and dignity of blacks. There will be marches, chants and choruses of “we shall overcome” – all of which will be carefully designed and presented to omit the fact that we have “overcame” [sic].

Sadly, but certainly not unexpectedly, Dr. King’s day of national commemoration has devolved into a day of misrepresentation of what he actually stood for: “blame the white capitalistic system” in general, “white conservatives” specifically, and “immiseration rallies” ad nauseam. I submit it is time to honor his memory in truth and honesty. I am long since wearied of the dissociative falsities surrounding his life and words.

Speaking of his life – it is enough to say he put it on the line, literally, every day. He didn’t retreat – he didn’t apologize. He didn’t distort the truth – he instead offered it up for America and the world to see. Presentation of the undiluted truth was a sulfuric colonic to the racist elements of his day. It was reality TV before islands, desperate wives and trying to impress casino owners.

Dr. King didn’t need to invent injustice – being denied the right to vote, eat, purchase and live where he chose didn’t need inventing. Same was the zeitgeist of his environs. Beatings, fire hoses and attack dogs in the hands of the hate-filled didn’t need embellishing – it needed only to be seen every night on the evening news for the conscience of America to demand change.

Truth can be denied by the darkness of hatred and by the recalcitrant, but it can never be disproved, nor can it ultimately be diminished. But some forms of truth are less transpicuous than others, thus the reason uninformed and uneducated people are so easily misled.

While there are any number of scholarly positions that would be open to cogent and reasoned debate were Dr. King still alive, what is not open for debate are his position on segregation, be it codified or self-imposed, or his position on drinking from the cup of bitterness and resentment that so many blissfully imbibe from today.

When we read: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggles on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. …The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers … realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedoms. …” (I have a dream speech, Aug. 28, 1963)

It gives us some indication of what he may have thought or said to the Jacksons, Sharptons, Farrakhans or Julian Bonds of today. Who cares to speculate per his opinion of the National Urban League president, Mark Morial, who praised Planned Parenthood as a “good organization,” even though the Ugandan parasite, Idi Amin, murdered fewer Africans during his entire bloodthirsty reign than the number of black babies Planned Parenthood casually murders annually with the blessing of so-called black leadership.

What would King say of his dream today – when we examine the devastating effect personal and social irresponsibility has had on the black family? We can but wonder how he would feel about black gangs, drugs, educational largesse, generational welfare and the damning results of the Great Society Initiative.

Perhaps instead of preening for photo-ops, the feckless fantasia called liberal politicians and black leadership would better spend their time trying to remember exactly what Dr. King’s dream was – because their version of same more closely resembles the nightmare of nocturnal occlusion.