My Racist MLK Day

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Article #24: Race Relations

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Today, my company was suppose to put out a press release about how we are helping aspiring writers, who are members of an eligible Greek-letter organization, to expand their reader base by joining forces with the National Greek Awards™.

I was really looking forward to sharing that with all of my Greek-Life friends and colleagues. Sadly, a temporary cloud decided to rear its ugly, but not unfamiliar head, and I felt it necessary to first shine a light on and through that darkness.

I cannot remember their name, but there was a comedian who said that yes, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was all about non-violence, but if you drove down any street named after him, there would definitely be some violence going on.

Unfortunately, it seems the same goes for racism on any MLK Day.

I’ve noticed over the years how racism seems to get turned up on the day of one of the most non-violent, prominent figures in American history.

It is as though the privileged feel attacked when they are reminded of the atrocities of slavery, genocide, and oppression done by their ancestors and the American economic, political, judicial, and ‘law enforcement’ systems that both directly and indirectly perpetuate those atrocities to this day.



And those of the privileged who are fueled to the fullest by the depths of bigotry and misdirected rage seem to use MLK Day as their own day to “Purge.”

But now they do it digitally.

On MLK Day, I was watching this video online of The Young Turks®, with co-hosts Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola, and comedian Jimmy Dore.

They were discussing some very questionable things former one-term Illinois Republican Congressman and current talk radio host Joe Walsh said about Black Lives Matter…yes, on MLK Day.

Watch for yourself:

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(Ok, breeeeeeathe. Relax. Take a few deep breaths and try and remain calm.) Now let’s recap those tweets Joe Walsh did:

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One thing that irritates me dearly is when someone is dismissive of things that matter to you. It hurts when a person about whom you care does it, but it can be very irritating when anyone does it.

In this case, what Joe Walsh did was simple:

• He dismissed an entire race’s legitimate and factually-justified movement, and he did it through a social media account, the most cowardly way to do something of that nature.

(And speaking of cowardly…)

Joe Walsh irritated me so much to where I just kept recapping privileged individuals, over the years, attempting to tell the oppressed how, in essence, they should be Ok with being racially profiled, physically shot, economically mutilated, educationally downtrodden…just all-around disenfranchisement.

So, I took to Twitter® to make a quick statement directly to those from whom I’ve virtually only seen those types of statements come:

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Yes, those are blanket statements about white Republican males. However…

…seeing the insane state of the current Republican Party and the absolutely racist and tasteless statements they make on a regular basis, not to mention the mob mentality of their attendees in attacking people of color at rallies for Republican political candidates, the reasonableness of my statements increases with each passing thought.

Surprisingly, to my statement, someone responded with an irony that even I didn’t see coming:

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WHOA! “Boy. That escalated quickly.”

That definitely came out of left field. And, based on all available evidence, this response was from a white Republican male with the even more ironic Twitter® handle @DontHateMe069 (Man, you can’t write this stuff…Smh).

Now I’d sent the second of what were going to be my only two (2) tweets before I got notification of his first one. So let me show you the rest of the conversation (if you even want to call it that), with a little commentary on the side, so you can see how the whole thing went down in real time.

Fair warning, though.

You might want to prepare to harness your rage.

Here we go:

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Yes. He tweeted at me a picture of an assassinated Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s National Holiday telling me to stop tweeting because I might disturbing him while “he sleeping,” and a male holding a confederate flag standing on the backs of two seeming Africans?

Yeah, that happened.

The crazy thing is that it was so over the top to where my anger turned over like a car that reached its maximum mileage digitally and just started over at all zeros.

That turned out to be a good thing because it tempered my response:

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Now I think I did good. Hey, freedom of speech, even if it’s hate speech, right? Oh, but he wasn’t done:

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Really?

How sad do you have to be to have this level of hatred in your heart?

The depths of misery within this person would take multiple psychiatrists and psychologists to even begin to try and begin to diagnose, but, again, he wasn’t finished.

He responded specifically to the second part of my original tweet:

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A walking, talking target? Was that a veiled threat?

Before I could respond, another white gentleman tagged me out, jumped in right quick, and threw a 98 mph fastball at A-Rod that he didn’t see coming, and hit him right upside his bigoted head:

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PLEASE NOTE: I don’t begrudge work at Golden Corral® or urinal maintenance, and I don’t think Scott does either. They’re both an honest day’s work. However…

…I do see and appreciate him trying to make a point about and an attack on “A-ROD” and his idiocy on my behalf, even if he more-than-likely inadvertently used the wrong verbiage. Thank you for that, Scott.

(Tagging back in, I jumped back on the pitcher’s mound):

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Now I was being symbolically tongue-and-cheek when I made that last statement. No actual white person works for me.

That was a symbolic statement about me actually being my own boss and not working under anyone and thereby putting myself in the position to have someone of what he definitely sees as his “superior race” working under me.

Translation:

(From the movie “The Last Dragon”)
Sho’ Nuff: “Who’s the Master?“
Me: “I am. I AM! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
(Cue the awesome Bruce Lee-style special effects!)

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So, having had his tongue tied because he bit off more than he could virtually chew, I went in for the kill:

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Kill him with kindness…and humiliation. Nothing like the meme of:

1. …a Black man, who is…

2. …President of the very country who enslaved his ancestors…

3. …the same country that crushed General Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy…

4. …laughing uncontrollably at a racist who supports the treasonous, defeated Confederacy.

Pure epic-ness Lol.

So now that he was thoroughly vanquished, I wanted to see who this ‘Twitter® Troll‘ was. And wouldn’t you know it?

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A fake profile.

He probably made it in order to protect his anonymity, since he knew the racial hatred inside of him and it, like an energy drink, fueling what he was planning to say was going to stir an online anger pot against him.

Yep, they were definitely right. It’s really easy to talk tough when you’re behind a keyboard. That’s pure ‘Internet gangster‘ stuff right there. However…

…to actually hide behind the safety of your computer, but then not even stand up for your own words when you’re behind that computer? Cenk Uygur, co-founder and host of The Young Turks®, said it best:

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Exactly. Cowardice.

Can you tell I was excited that someone with an even larger audience and platform than mine said what I’ve been trying to get across to people for years?

It’s a shame, though. We have violence in the streets, and now we have virtual violence in the tweets. However…

…like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many before and after him, I have The Audacity of Hope that we shall overcome some day.