The Soap Box

That’s it, we’ve finally done it. We’ve finally killed Martin Luther King.

In 1968 he was martyred, and though the civil rights movement that he was such an essential participant in - and of which he remains the principal representative - splintered and fizzled beginning even before his death, his legacy continued to have at least some meaning until recently. King was gone, and yet we still talked from time to time about the color line in our country. The government and politicians still at least postured as though they were doing something about it. We could agree that there was a problem, and we backed government programs (though not fully) to deal with them.

But this year, on Martin Luther King Day, we were treated to two political moments which conclusively demonstrate that Dr. King has indeed crossed over to the other side, into the world of totally ineffectual mythic national symbols. The first was Senator Hillary Clinton in a black church in Harlem, where she compared the U.S. House of Representatives to a plantation on which the Republicans are the slaveholders and the Democrats, presumably, are the slaves. At the same time, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin informed the nation that New Orleans will be a chocolate city once again, because God wants it that way. And both of them are Democrats.

Nowadays, rather than discussing resegregation in our urban centers, racial tracking in our schools, and outrageous levels of unemployment among black workers, our politicians only feel compelled on Martin Luther King Day to make vague references to race in order to score the obligatory politcal points. And those points are so easy to capture. It doesn’t even require any understanding of racism in contemporary America. According to Clinton, black people are no longer the principal party in need of salvation from racism and prejudice; apparently, the Democratic Party are now the slaves, and once they are freed, the emancipation of black America will follow. And even Bootsy Collins knows that chocolate cities went out of style twenty years ago; no one wants to see destitute, majority-black urban centers anymore. To add insult to injury, once the MLK balloons and streamers come down, it’s back to personal responsibility, work instead of welfare, and school vouchers for the pols.

In the 1970’s, King’s vision was still being pursued, albeit through more militant vehicles such as Black Power. As recently as the 1980’s, King’s importance to American culture and history was directly debated and affirmed when the federal holiday was established to honor him. And the push from multiculturalists to include more minority voices in American culture and education that culminated in the 1990’s often drew inspiration and claimed legitimacy from King’s legacy. In retrospect, these movements represent the clear dissolution of King’s legacy from effective direct social action against injustice and poverty to mere symbolism. And now that transformation is finally complete.

King’s legacy has been demoted as an active force in our society, reduced to a national motto, a vacuous platitude to reference on the back of a coin. All that’s left is his dream. Just as the Republican Party (with a recent presidential approval rating among black Americans of 2%) can get away with calling itself “The Party of Lincoln,” politicians of every persuation - activists and bigots alike - are now the proud owners of equal shares in the socially bankrupt King cottage political industry. An altar to King will soon be constructed on the National Mall so that we will all have a place where our righteousness is made palpable.

Beware, the Martin Luther King Day auto dealership sales cannot be far behind.