Well, I guess it’s official. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a full part of the American mainstream. He’s no longer marginalized or seen as the threat he was during his life.
I know the slain civil rights leader is part of the status quo now because I’ve seen an ad for a sale connected with his holiday. Solemn ceremonies don’t mean squat. It’s when they use your memory to lure customers that counts here. So you made freedom ring? Unless cash registers follow suit, you’re not a full-fledged American hero.
It’s in our national DNA. After all, international social commentator Alexis de Tocqueville noted it as early as 1835. “I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men,” he wrote in Democracy in America. Of course, he also warned that democracy without a strong ethical base was doomed, but we don’t need to read the fine print.
C'mon, does anyone really know when Presidents’ Day is close other than the red-white-and-blue circulars luring shoppers into hardware stores and garden centers? “Honest Abe walked a mile in the snow to give a man a penny but you’ll save more than pennies when you come to Toilets-R-Us.” Boy, there’s some dignity for the Ol’ Railsplitter, huh?
We say we value freedom and self-determination but it’s consumption that seems to rule the nation. It’s what leaders warned us not to forsake before the dust had even settled on the men digging out the World Trade Center a decade ago. Seek revenge on the evil-doers. Go shopping.
“Hey, Bob! Did you see this new Makita drill I picked up?”
“Is that the one with the new auto-clutch?”
“You bet. Nothing says ‘freedom’ like 450 pounds of torque.”
“That’ll show Osama!”
So, Dr. King, you have arrived. When I can hear that Dr. Scholl’s sole inserts will make me feel like I’m walking on clouds while I’m marching to Selma, we know you’re a part of the American cultural firmament.
I can hear the barking pitchmen now: “Martin Luther King had a dream. Now you’ll have sweet dreams too on one of our Slumber-E-Z mattresses.”
Though in this area of the country, I’m surprised every bakeshop in sight isn’t advertising Martin Luther Kingcakes, complete with plastic figurines buried inside, each with their own tradition.
“Mama, how come Charlotte gets to sit at the head of the table?”
“Well, Scott, you know since her piece of cake had Rosa Parks, she gets to pick her own seat.”
But then again, I’m still surprised any of Mobile’s MLK parades haven’t involved throws considering everything short of a funeral procession feels the necessity to fling trinkets and snacks. I’m sure the folks in Chattanooga could whip up some combo vanilla-chocolate moonpies for a day dedicated to racial harmony.
Considering the waning bounds of taste in contemporary society, my only surprise is that we haven’t seen sales on billy clubs and firehoses. I’m sure they could find a Kardashian to pose in the ads. Seems like there’s nothing those folks won’t do for attention.
A little much, you say? I don’t think so. After all, look what we’ve done with Christmas.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Dr. King’s legacy shaped to fit someone’s petty desires. It’s what we do with everyone worth remembering.
Although I have to say, the recent movement to turn the MLK holiday into something that reflects the nature of service, of dedicating your life to higher goals, is refreshing. I just wonder how a society that can be as narcissistic and materialistic as ours will embrace such.
That’s the course I wanted to see us take in the wake of 9-11, to prove to our enemies and detractors that we could rise above the images of wanton consumption they associate with our culture. Sadly, we did nothing of the sort.
Who better to associate with such altruism than a man who spent the final decade of his life in logical mortal fear that every day would be his last? To willingly make yourself a target, to engender and welcome the scorn of a segment of our society whose very existence hinged on hatred and violence is something most of us can’t begin to understand. That kind of bravery deserves notice.
King knew from the day he stepped out onto the plank of public resistance that it would end over the turbulent waters of violent death. But he walked anyway.
It hasn’t been for nothing. While it can often seem that old ways and mindsets hang on too stubbornly, progress has been made. Sure, we still have a lot of the same divisions. Sunday morning remains the most segregated time in America.
While neighborhoods can still seem generally segregated, they aren’t to the extreme they were when King was alive. Economics are as much a predicator now as ethnicity.
Romantic relationships between individuals of varied races don’t cause the outrageous consternation they did even when the King holiday was established in the 1980s. People I know who fled Mobile to shelter their “mixed-race” children from certain attitudes have been surprised by how much tensions have eased with time.
Maybe one day everyone will learn what anthropologists can tell us, that race is a social construct and something nearly negligible in the realm of genetics. Ethnicity is something shaped by behavior far more than it’s embedded in a double helix.
We have the benefit of seeing a lot of ground behind us, but this isn’t the time for self-congratulation. That hard road trod serves best as inspiration that the many miles remaining are possible to conquer.
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