Hubs, being a public school teacher, got to stay home today to celebrate the venerable life of the greatest civil rights leader arguably of all time. I celebrated like any good American should: I stayed in my pajamas, watched a movie and didn’t clean ANYTHING. Thank you, MLK.
The thing about MLK Jr. is that he is one of few subjects you can’t make jokes about…especially if you’re a pasty white suburban housewife from East Texas. (I’m not kidding about the pasty, y’all. Don’t let the drumline farmer’s tan fool you.) The honest truth is, the man is a legend, and rightly so. There’s just no comedic material there.
Once I was on a photo shoot and I was stopped by a group of African-American high school students and their teacher. It was February and they asked if I would take a Black History Month survey. I agreed, and was pelted with random trivia questions about MLK Jr: Where was his funeral held? What was the name given to him at birth? Who spoke at his funeral? What year was he born? What year did he win the Nobel? What was his great grandmother’s dog’s maiden name? And when I didn’t know the answers they all just looked at each other and laughed and whispered under their breath. Fortunately for that group, I was with a client at the time and could not employ my good-enough-to-make-me-internet-famous ninja karate skills to express the slight disdain I felt at the implication. Instead I did what any well brought up Southern lady would do: I thanked them for their time, walked quickly away, and spent the next year winning countless arguments with them in my head. (How else do you entertain yourself on long drives?)
And so, in honor of a man I like to call Mr. The King Jr. (because we were tight, y’all, for reals), here are a few of my own survey questions to ask yourself to see if you understand (if you are under the age of 40, read “as much as it is possible to understand”) just exactly how far we’ve come in the last 40 years, thanks to a man who dedicated his life to making everyone equal. Like, socially equal. Not that fake sweetener stuff. That doesn’t even make sense.
1. Who is Martin Luther King, Jr.?
2. Why was his famous “I Have a Dream” speech so important?
3. Regardless of your particular brand of politics, what major history-making political milestone was recently reached that probably would not have been at all possible without the tireless work of Mr. The King Jr? (Hint: The answer rhymes with Marack Polama.)
4. When someone of another race snubs you on the bus, or ignores you on an elevator, or acts agitated and nervous when around you, is it automatically attributed to racism?
5. How would you define the difference between a “racial” remark and a “racist” remark?
6. Is it offensive that I wrote this quiz, and I’m white?
7. Do you consider MLK Jr. to be a hero for black people, or for all people?
So raise your glasses, young and old, black and white, skinny, fat, and in between, to another year that has seen extreme progress that can be tied undeniably to the backbreaking work of one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.