I don't know how to say it without sounding facetious but, though I enjoy the spelling of that word, I reject the behavior it implies in all aspects of my life. I am at home today, on the couch, observing the national holiday. There is no requirement for celebration, only a space of time to reflect and consider the use of one's life.
I was discussing today's holiday just now, with a friend. We are from the same part of the world, which is to say, the inner-city public schools of upstate New York. We gazed daily towards the front of a classroom, and there, between the American flag and the loudspeaker was a framed portrait of the man, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Who is he to me? The only word I know to use for my feeling is uncle, so familiar, familial. The stories told of him were stories held close, cherished, my fourth grade teacher was ironing a dress when it came onto the radio that he had been shot. This information weaves through me and ties together in new ways, as though I were present for any of it.
I guess that in terms of civil rights leaders it is easier for me to identify with Malcolm X, and not just because I have seen the Spike Lee film several times. I would be so angry, I would be furious and indignant and calculating, seething. I am all of these things in my own way, as a woman, as a witness to other people's pain. But in his transcendent way, the only way I know how to aspire to be, he had love. How, please tell me, is that possible. His round face,
tremulous voice, familiar, resonating, transmitting, still, to this day, messages of love. I can't get over it. I won't get over it and today I can revel in it.
I can't get over Marcus Garvey's hat, either. I guess the lessons are that love, seriousness, and a good hat can really change the world. Don't you dare call it facetious.
"So that all gay men forever could understand Pan-Africanism:"
-photo and quote courtesy JCB,
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