Seriously? Martin Luther King, Junior spoke about me? A nice Jewish girl from a distinguished lower Alabama white trash background? Where we didn't have gay people? And I still heard things like "Salt and Pepper don't mix" from friends? He talked about me before I was even born? Huh. I'd like to think I'm "creatively maladjusted". While I understand those I grew up with, I don't agree with them. I don't think them less intelligent...though I do feel like they don't listen to their rhetoric before they speak it. Of course, I can name just as many bleeding hearts who do the same. I like to challenge those I grew up with. Their reality is different from mine, though I suspect we're closer than our words would indicate. Of course, I'm the girl who asked her uncle what he'd do if I came home and announced I was gay. He'd told an anti-gay joke. Boy...talk about an uncomfortable family silence!!
What would MLK have done if he hadn't been made a martyr? And Malcolm X? And RFK? What would have been undone if George Wallace had become a martyr?
These weren't perfect people. King had mistresses. Malcolm was an ex-con. Kennedy? Well, he was a Kennedy AND a Joseph P.'s son. George Wallace paid a price for his views and recanted. Whether not he was sincere is pretty much between him and his maker.
I can't fathom what the world looked like even in the year I was born, 1971. While racism was alive and well in my childhood, there was no hitting or spitting or lynching. Amongst my school peers, I don't even remember it being a hard segregation. That wasn't true in the 60s. When American fought American over whether or not someone was inferior due to something beyond their control. Sad to see the hatred hasn't faded, just been re-focused for the most part.
I go back to Garth Brooks. I know. One day, maybe not in my lifetime, We Shall Be Free.
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1 comment:
VERY well written, daughter.
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