Boy, I’m glad that’s over.

As amazing as it may have been to watch Barack Obama, his wife, and children become the first black president and first family of the United States; the level of self congratulatory conceit displayed by the media and politicians was enough to make you puke. The perfect juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Day and the coronation inauguration of America’s first black President was more than any PR flack could hope for. And the marketers were out in droves pimping brand Obama, a brand more potent than Air, iPod, or Google combined. Hats, coffee mugs, buttons and T-shirts were on display and on sale reinforcing Obama’s tagline of “hope” and “change”.

Implicit in that tagline is the “hope” that black folks will finally stop talking about racism, and that America has “changed” into the land of freedom and righteousness we’ve been pretending that it was all this time. In fact “hope” and “change” can be milked for another couple of decades. We can still run a woman, asian, homosexual, or jew just to confuse the public. Who cares about policy? POTUS 2.0, now available in multiple shades and lifestyles.

And the product tie-in this year was to die for. Are you kiddin’ me? Martin Luther King who had a dream that one day “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls”. And here we are forty odd years later with the product of one those little black boys and little white girls assuming the presidency. Only in America!

King’s legacy had already been thoroughly appropriated by the powers that be. Here’s the opportunity to further minimize and confuse the revolutionary nature of Kings “dream” of eliminating poverty at home and U.S. sponsored violence abroad by equating it with Obama’s “dream” of getting a really good job. Did I forget the Beanie Babies named after Sasha and Malia?

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I’m including one of King’s speeches regarding America at war just so we remember what a true revolutionary sounds like:

Beyond Vietnam - Martin Luther King

New York, N.Y.
4 April 1967

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit.

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

Related posts:

1. Pimping brand Obama

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