MLK Day observations

I would like to apologize in advance for several things in today’s post:

• A rambling, go-nowhere kind of post.
• The use of the word “nigger”
• The use of the word “pussy”

Over the years I have developed a great distaste for the word “nigger”, and I almost never write it, and I rarely speak it. Only when I am very pissed. I liken the word “nigger” to be as offensive as the word “cunt”, which I also rarely use, and only when I am really pissed off. However, I was not able to use the word “cunt” in the post below. Instead I had to use “pussy”. While speaking of the same area geographically, the latter meaning is the one needed.

I have decided that there are 3 types of people in and around the area where I live, and perhaps farther spread than that.

These are:

1. People who vehemently deny the honoring of Martin Luther King as they passionately acknowledge the honoring of Robert E. Lee.
2. People who vehemently deny the honoring of Robert E. Lee and passionately acknowledge the honoring of Martin Luther King.
3. People that accept both of these men and their places in history.

Numbers 1 and 2 are definitely the crowd pleasers here.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea when either birthday really is. But I do know that until I was in my twenties, business in Jackson, Mississippi (and I’m sure other southern cities as well) would close for Robert E. Lee’s birthday. I remember when I was young I was branded a heretic for asking why we celebrated him since he lost the Civil War. (Or the Great Unpleasantness as some still refer to it.)

However, through the years I have actually learned a little about the man and have come to realize that he did possess many traits that would should be considered noble. Now, I’m not making him out to be a great hero by any means, but he did manage some “forward thinking” actions in his lifetime, and I think that he and Dr. King may have been able to have some good discussions together.

So anyway, I took the day off yesterday. Not to honor either one of these men, but to spend the day with my girlfriend. Her company actually closed for a day! But they aren’t from around here.

It seems to me (and I may be wrong here) that some of the local businesses around here that once closed for REL day have, in a fit of spite to be admired by a precocious 2 year old, remained open once MLK day was established as a legal holiday. I can almost see these white-headed patriarchs, infirm and palsied, loosening their grip on their walkers in order to shake a spotty fist at the unseen enemy. “How dare you, suh?” they may croak. They probably feel as if the Negroes are raping their daughters unabashed, spoiling the flowers of Dixie.

Well, in case you were wondering, I am in the third category. While the majority of my friends are either 1 or 2. It reminds of the assholes that think that if you are not “pro-choice”, then you have to be “pro-death”. As if…

I can remember the turmoil surrounding the assassination if MLK. Memphis was just 200 miles from my house. My parents, as beatnik and uber-hip as the strove to be in 1960’s Jackson, worked themselves into a frenzy that night. I’m sure they were debating putting the mattresses against the walls to hopefully serve as projectile barricades or whether to go ahead and just shoot my brother and me and then kill themselves to avoid the coming slaughter. I had no idea of the scope of what was happening at the time. It just seemed to me like I was seeing an awful lot of televised funerals around that time.

Back in 1984 when U2’s “Pride” became a huge hit, the band I was in was covering that song. I will never forget the moment when one of my best friends said to me that MLK was “just another nigger” and then lashed out at U2 for writing that song. I have never been so astounded and amazed before or since. Here was a perfectly functioning member of society in all of the social graces and skills, but she was a true “daughter of the South” and it just freaked me out. Granted, her wounds were caused not by experiences, but by the clever honing of her mind by her parents and grandparents and a bevy of aunts and uncles, all intent on saving the South from the black man. And while I must admit she has mellowed over the years, I never again brought up that particular subject. I don’t want to know the answer. I pride myself on being patient enough to have friends in categories 1 and 2, but I guess one of the bad things about membership in the #3 club is that you occasionally just have to be a pussy and ignore the assholes.