MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. 2003: A WARM AND FRIENDLY MUPPET OF A MAN

If you pay close attention to the usual MLK day media hype, you'll probably see some film clips of the great march on Washington, hear bits of the "I have a dream" speech, and hear pundits, politicians, and other leaders give bland, inspecific praise to the great civil rights leader. It's even worse in the world of public education: here he is something of a warm, fuzzy, uplifting, friendly muppet that says nice things about black children and white children; his "dream" becomes mingled with and therefore indistinguishable from the more abstract and fictional "American Dream." Let's face it, in 2003, MLK is now far more of a symbol used by the establishment to make us all feel good about race relations than he is a martyred revolutionary.

While King was no doubt friendly, warm, and uplifting, progressives must make sure to firmly stress what he actually was, a scathing critic of the American racist, classist, imperialist, capitalist, elitist establishment. It seems that the powers that be were willing to tolerate his charismatic leadership as long as he kept his fiery rhetoric confined to simple understandings of race relations; he was assasinated within months of his speech coming out against the Vietnam war, a speech that linked American racism to militarism, materialism, and capitalism.

This MLK day, do yourself a favor and remember him not with a millionth rehearing of the "I have a dream" speech; rather, read the text of his anti-Vietnam war speech. You won't regret it.