MLK memorial dedication a bittersweet reminder...

I've been thinking a lot about Dr. King since I first read about the dedication and I have to admit, Sunday's dedication will be particularly bittersweet for me.

Bitter - because like me and others, I think "Dr. King Would Be Appalled" with "The Corporate King Memorial and The Burial of a Movement."   I look at the body languange of the statue - it's crossed arms and stern face - and I thought, "How very closed and uninviting they've portrayed him!" I agree with Alan Caruba at the first link, when he says:

It is also one of the most hideous works of “art” imaginable for anyone who recalls the times and the character of a man who said, “I am not interested in power for power’s sake, but I am interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”

The statue depicts a scowling figure, his face fixed with the look of every despot whose statue is intended to instill fear or awe in those who gaze upon it. His arms are crossed over his chest as if protecting himself or preparing to pass a harsh judgment.

It is hideous because it completely obliterates the gentleness of Dr. King, the heart that strove against injustice. The awfulness of the statue reminded me of another of his quotes, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

I have no idea what the memorial committee had in mind when it sanctioned this statue, but I have little doubt that Dr. King would have been mortified by it. He was a man who, on that long ago evening on the Drew University campus, greeted Vivian and me with a big smile in the midst of a great struggle to secure the rights of blacks in America.

In these times in which Arabs in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia have put their lives on the line to overthrow their tyrants, Dr. King had anticipated that human aspiration saying, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

None of that takes anything away from the stick-to-it-ivness of the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (inactive for longer than I was active - for my own reasons), I salute you for your six-year struggle to make this "dream" a reality!  But I can't help but agree with my brother Jared Ball at the second link:

"...given the vicious re-imaging King suffered before his assassination, the vitriol he withstood from a nation determined to resist the change he represented, and given the post-assassination routine destruction of his advancing radical politics, it is simply not hard to determine just what this memorial intends to convey or the present meaning it intends to define."

And I can't help but think of all the Black million/billionaires, who, along with us common folk, could have helped make this memorial possible - without the corporate help - so it could have been something WE wanted and did on our own (Hell, the publicity pimp extraordinaire and his National Action Network collected a whole buncha money from Black folk!). Yeah, I know, that's not how it's done in America - but who says, because that's the way it's always been, that's the way it always has to be??!!

The fact that the Changeling will be speaking at the dedication of a statue of a man, whose name he couldn't even bring himself to utter during his acceptance of the Democratic nomination, also makes my jaw tight.  No doubt he will channel Dr. King in his delivery (as he always does, particularly when speaking to Black folk!). But hopefully, this man "without a culture" - will be dwarfed by, rather than conflated with - the significance of the moment, especially since we all know, or ought to, that he's not been willing, nor able to even attempt the love, sincerity, ideals or humanity of a man who chose to stand up - rather than sit down and go with the flow.

Sweet - because Dr. Martin Luther King DESERVES to be memorialized. He has been to America, a voice, "crying out in the wilderness" (as brother nomad says about those of us, not blinded by the Changeling's bullshit ) - one that is STILL sorely needed today.

P.S:  A little off-topic (but kinda not) - I'm sitting here watching the documentary, "Holy Water - Gate:  Abuse Cover-up in the Catholic Church" (if you get a chance, do watch!).  A priest, who'd also been abused as a young adolescent (by a priest), just said, "Hope, has two lovely daughters - anger and courage."  It struck me, how lacking the Changeling is in both, while Dr. King had them both - in abundance (Caruba's POV notwithstanding - y'all white folk can go ahead and fool yourselves that he was not an Angry Black Man if you want to!  I didn't say hateful - I said Angry, there is a difference).

UPDATE:  No Way to Honor Dr. King (very interesting)

A "Crisis of Faith"

I got up today, made coffee and switched on CNN just in time to see the two big stories of the day - a celebration of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the White House and the Supreme Court considers the death penalty (for the rape of a child and whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment ).

I switched the TV off, drank my coffee while looking out the kitchen window at my friend, a white ibis perched atop the 6ft.-tall ficus hedge, partitioning the western side of my house from the street. For some strange reason, that ibis and a black and yellow striped butterfly both grace me with their presence every single day (well the ibis, almost every single day)! My heart felt so heavy with the irony of these accepted, powers-that-be involved in "saving" society from itself. Aloud, to no on in particular, I asked the question I've been asking for some time now, "Where's God in all this madness?"  Spurred by the news coverage and that ever-present question, I went to my laptop (damn desktop died in mid-post the other day!) and sat down to post on my continued "crisis of faith."

Before I started writing though, I decided to click through my blogroll and went first, to The Field Negro's site to which I gravitated early on when I decided to build this thing. Being a "field negro" myself, I figured there'd be something there to which I could relate and I was right. His writing is smart, intuitive and funny while at the same time, bold, unapologetic, real and most importantly, open to something other than his familiar. You don't have to agree with everything he says, but he'll sure as hell make you think while offering a great forum to debate/discuss the topic du jour. I was up after 2 a.m. this morning discussing two separate blog posts with a constant commenter there!

His latest post, "My religion post" threw me for a real loop. When I saw the title, I immediately heard that, Twilight Zone, "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo," and thought, "Okay, this is either some weird or very spiritual shit!" He'd posted what I was feeling and had hit the nail on the head on almost every damn thing! I left a comment to that effect, but didn't elaborate because I knew I'd be posting my thoughts here. But I have to say, it shook me - in a good way. This may end up being a two-part post because I know how long-winded I can be. I'll see.

Today's "celebration" struck an old nerve because I was once a Catholic, though probably for all the wrong reasons. I went to an all-Black Catholic school in the Jim Crow south from kindergarten to 8th grade. The Oblate Sisters of Providence out of Baltimore was the Black order tasked with educating us.

Born into a family of organized religion (my father was Episcopalian and my mother was a Methodist-turned-Southern Baptist), I started out indoctrinated. Protestant church, a minimum of twice on Sundays with a two-week, Baptist Training Union (BTU) camp every summer and oddly, Mass every Wednesday during the school week. God was always in my life. I both believed and feared that, despite or maybe because of the presence of that Crow guy. In the 6th grade, I clearly remember coming home and telling my mother, "I want to be a Catholic." She looked at me like I was losing my damned mind. She asked me if I understood that she and my father were working three jobs between them to send us to Catholic school to get a better education than the one white people were providing via the public school system. Adding, "We're not working that hard for you to get their religion!"

The fact that her form of Christianity was also their religion was not a topic we discussed. As is my wont, I did it anyway, but it only lasted a couple years. As it turns out, my issues with the necessity of having "middle-men" won out. I was having a hard time understanding why I had to go to weekly Confession and tell my sins to Father Joyce or Father Haggerty so they could tell God, then have God tell them what my Penance should be, in order for me to get absolution! I repeatedly pestered my principal, Sister Duchesne (a long, dark chocolate drink of water who was a "new nun" because she wore a half-habit showing the front part of her hair and a shin-length skirt) about why I couldn't get forgiveness from God myself. I wanted to be a nun just like her and even though she freely laid paddle-to-ass, quite frequently mine, I trusted her to tell me the truth. Needless to say, her explanation was insufficient. So, back to my mother's Baptist church and BTU I went.

The Pope's "celebration," in light of my background, certainly stirred old affiliations, but it was more disappointing than anything else. He's good at parsing too. And the crowd and the media seemed okay with that, being more caught up in "being in the presence." I wondered, as I often do when I think of the literal sins of the Fathers, "What does God think?" What did God think when His Holiness denounced pedophilia, but was mute on the acceptance of LGBT congregants and female priests? What does God think about our daughters, caught between life happening and their faith, as they struggle with the tenet of abstinence-only in a non-abstaining culture? What does God think about women, considered outcasts because, for whatever reason, they chose abortion? What does God think about the spiritual and physical repercussions of men and women languishing in loveless marriages because the church frowns on divorce? I kept asking myself, "What is there to celebrate about a church leader so out of touch with what congregants really need, in favor of the dogma which slowly kills the spirit of some, while others, feeling lost and alone in this wilderness we call life, kill themselves?"

I've not been to church in at least three years and my attendance before that was intermittent at best. I bear no allegiance to any organized faith though I always say I am Baptist when asked, probably because that was my last affiliation. I am not atheist, nor am I agnostic because I do believe in a power greater than me - greater than us. Call it whatever you like, but I don't believe we just came to be. I don't believe the Bible is the word of God, but rather a guide written by followers of Christ. Like most people raised in the church, however, I have one. And at times, I find solace and meaning in some of its passages, but confusion and cruelty in others. I remember telling that to my doctor once in an after-exam consultation. We talked for about 30 minutes! Ten about the additional test for which he was writing a referral and 20 about God and the Bible!

I can still recall the look on his face as I shared some conversations I'd had with some Arabic linguists while in language school about biblical, Hebrew-to-English translations. He was horrified! He kept telling me the Bible was God's word and I should come visit his church some Sunday. After some back and forth we agreed on the Bible being the "inspired" word of God and that I might drop in to hear some good gospel music one Sunday. I've not gotten there yet. Some time, in the last five years or so, my faith in God has been shaken, but that Southern Baptist in me, that ex-Catholic in me, won't let me say God doesn't exist. As I look around this world in which we live, I cling (yes Sen. Obama, I cling) to the belief that my God has to be in me and it will be by my works, by my serving humanity in whatever small way I can, that I'll someday either find that faith again or make peace with what I have.