04 April 2008

It Was Forty Years Ago Today…

… but this is not an essay about the Beatles. It's merely a note of one of the shattering events of the year in which America refused to confont its past, its present, or its future, and continues to pay for the consequences.

On a hotel balcony in Memphis, They shot Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr King was not a perfect man. He surrounded himself with other imperfect men, such as the Rev Jesse Jackson. And when I say "They," I'm not putting forth any new conspiracy theory, or adopting any old conspiracy theory; I'm merely acknowledging that the shooting didn't begin or end with a bullet. J. Edgar "Pink Tutu" Hoover, George Wallace, and that crowd share responsibility; so did many of Dr King's allies. Their various moral/spiritual/ethical descendents continue to share that responsibility every time they make a violent distinction based on race and/or ethnicity and/or religion, which continues to reveal the content of their respective characters.