How Far in 44?

We love anniversaries in this country, good, bad or those of infamy.

The dates dance around our minds: December 7; November 22; September 11; July 4.

Today is another one of those dates.

It was 44 years ago today when James Earl Ray took aim and cut down Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, TN.

There's film footage of U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, addressing a crowd and breaking the news to them of Dr. King's assassination. There are audible gasps and cries of anguish heard.

Kennedy himself would be murdered about two months later.

I suppose the anniversary of Dr. King's murder is as good as time as any to ponder: have things gotten any better, really, in this country when it comes to race relations?

Is it mere irony or an indictment on us as a society that April 4 arrives as the nation is still loitering around the water cooler, talking about the February 26 killing of Trayvon Martin?

The Martin case would appear to be a prime example of how little we've come re: how blacks are perceived by non-blacks.


April 4, 1968; Memphis, TN



You don't want to think that we've done little to no evolving since April 4, 1968, but I submit that it would be a tough case for you to make that we have---evolved, that is.

More like spinning our wheels, it seems at times.

Yes, we have a black president. Yes, blacks have ascended to other positions of authority where they hadn't in 1968. That's all well and good.

But are those exceptions rather than the rule?

It's 2012, some 44 years after Dr. King said on the night before his death that "I may not get there with you", and being a young black male wearing a hoodie is no less dangerous than being of color in 1968 and before.

I'm not suggesting that Dr. King died in vain. But nor can I confidently say that his death paved the way for improved race relations.

Can you?

Comments

Post a Comment

As you will...

Popular posts from this blog

Life, Interrupted

Image
I don't take in late night television too much anymore, which actually follows a pattern I have throughout the rest of the day. If it's not sports, or a special about the JFK assassination, I pretty much don't watch it. But I happened upon the David Letterman show a few years ago---I remember this distinctly---and I was taken by the bubbly, perky young woman chatting up Dave to the audience's, and Dave's, bemusement. She was breezy without appearing loaded. Engaging without being ditzy. She just seemed like a lot of fun; there was nothing bimbo about her. It wasn't very long after that when I caught her in a movie with Ashton Kutcher, a comedy called "Just Married." She was terrific in it. That's how I remember Brittany Murphy. Murphy, who died suddenly at age 32 yesterday in California, wasn't typically mentioned when the discussion turned to America's finest young actors. She had her moments, though. There was her turn in "8 Mile,&qu
Read more

Del--icious?

Image
Another taco place is opening up near me and suddenly it's 1979 again. Taco Bell was a mostly unexplored food experience for me and my friends when word got out that they were constructing one on Merriman Road in Livonia, just north of Plymouth Road. We'd been, but always via car, somewhere else, and on precious few occasions. But this new one would be only a nice, worth-it bike's ride away from our houses. So it opens, and if we didn't go on the first day, it was pretty darn close to it. My friends were amazed at how much Taco Bell I could consume. Kind of like today, when my wife and daughter are amazed at how much Taco Bell I can consume. Still. It's a great bang-for-the-buck, really. You gotta love any fast food place anymore that has items on its menu for under a dollar. We wore out that new Taco Bell for a period of time, enamored with its newness and novelty status. And I typically ordered the most food. Back then, I could probably gorge myself for about thre
Read more

Murder in the Backyard

Image
Twenty-four years ago, I read a book and it scared me half to death. That's what'll happen, when you read about gruesome murders that took place right in your own backyard. The book was titled "Michigan Murders," by Edward Keyes, and it chronicled---sometimes in gory detail---the killing spree of one John Norman Collins in and around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in the late-1960s. Collins, who's still in prison up in Marquette, was only convicted of one of the murders---that of Karen Sue Beineman---but it's widely believed that Collins was responsible for the deaths of up to six girls, mostly college students from Eastern Michigan University. What made the book so stark in its reality was that I was foolish enough to read it while attending EMU, in my senior year. Many of the events took place in Ypsilanti, near the EMU campus, and Keyes describes them in detail---sometimes with addresses---so it was damn near impossible not to get the creeps reading it, consideri
Read more