MLK Day

Watched an episode of The Boondocks yesterday whose premise was what Martin Luther King, Jr would say today if he hadn't died, if he'd been in a coma and awoke today to see the state of America. It was a brilliant episode, and not just because of the answer that McGruder presents: that Martin Luther King would be ashamed to see what has happened in the decades since his shooting, how there was so much hope and so much righteous anger and it turned into BET and 50 Cent. In a lot of ways that goes for America as a whole, I suppose, with the Greatest Generation settling for a Big Mac and Dallas.

Why does that always seem to happen to movements? Engines and catalysts for real change invariably seem to end up co-opted, turned into money making schemes or rhetorical extremism. I watched an episode of Bullshit the other day talking about gun control, Second Amendment rights and whatnot, and what struck me (and which I blurted out while watching it) was that they have all these people talking about oh, guns are good, guns are bad, blah blah blah...and they're all white people. Just once when people are doing a gun control story, I'd like them to get away from Constitutional professors and lawyers, Charlton Heston with his stupid goddamn flintlock musket and overweight 50 year old women who say carrying a gun makes them feel safe. I'd like to get away from all those morons and go talk to people living in slums, living in ghettos, living in Jersey (ha ha, couldn't resist that one) and say hey, how do YOU feel about the fact that guns are so easily available? How do you feel about that? Do you or would you feel safer owning a gun of your own? How do you think the problem should be fixed? Is there even a problem? No-one ever listens, no-one ever cares. And what would Martin Luther King say about that? Or Malcolm X? Or Ghandi? Or any of the great leaders of the ages? Would they have any answers for us?

I think part of the problem is that people look for leaders to give them answers. No-one can have all the answers. I think the best a leader can do is to show you a path; choosing to walk down it and truly being committed to following it wherever it leads you is up to each individual.