THE INCONVENIENT KING

The true meaning of the samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love.- Morihei Ueshiba

You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Coon! Sellout! Uncle Tom! He destroyed the black community with integration. Agent! Degenerate! These are just a few adjectives and ignant ass phrases from ignant ass people to describe the greatest theologian and American of the 20th century. There is not a more maligned or misunderstood person in the pantheon of black leadership than Martin Luther King Jr. It is easy to attribute such ignorance to a lack of information but the truth is it is intentional. We don’t know and we don’t even care to know.

For many of us, King is easily collapsed in an airtight cage of christian capitulation. A place where the judeo-christian narrative of non-violence emasculates one in the face of white violence and bestiality. White People clutch onto his message of non-violence because it soothes their anxieties in the face of their inhumanity———An inhumanity that claimed the lives of massive numbers of black people, including King himself.

His message assuages their guilt for a universal karma that they know they more than deserve. They are woefully ignorant of his political philosophy. They are unconcerned about his economic platform. Their only concern is the tranquil drug of black patience in the face of atrocity. King is the saving grace that grants them an undeserving absolution. This is probably the reason that they are forever contrasting him against his greatest critic: Malcolm X. In general conversations about race, white people are almost always coyly trying to get black people to choose a side when it comes to Martin and Malcolm. So their ignorance, to a certain degree is predictable. But what of ours?

As time passes, it seems that Black People are more and more divorced from King’s meaning even as we are clueless of his message. Like white people we are wrapped in a sentimental and anemic understanding of the idea of love that we think he embraced. It is a love that is weak, effeminate, and cowardly. But is this King? The true King was a master of strategy. He played on the predictable bigotry of his opponents. When threatened with death, he didn’t retreat. When showered with money, he gave nearly all of it back to the movement.

So on this day, let us at get a glimpse of the real King by dispelling the some of the most egregious lies around his legacy shall we?

• Martin Luther King destroyed the Black Community with integration.
• REBUTTAL: I’m tired of this ignant ass shit! But here we go. There is literally no speech where Dr. King told black people to desert black businesses for white merchants. NONE! The desegregation of lunch counters and stores was not about shopping at the stores so much as it was a tactic to break the power of the political and economic elite of the local white power structure. It was simply a strategy to disenfranchise the bigots that funded the terrorism of the Klan. While he had his clashes with Black Titan A.G. Gaston, King shared a dedication to the building of black economic institutions with the likes of Booker T. Washington. This is King’s position on black businesses.

King’s Non-violent stance made black people vulnerable. REBUTTAL: Really!? What were we before? It wasn’t like whites were afraid of blacks. According to government statistics on racially motivated crimes, Blacks were assaulted, beaten, raped, or murdered to the tune of once every three days. So exactly how did King make black people more vulnerable to white violence?

King was a member of the Boule’

REBUTTAL: This theory was advanced by the late political researcher Steve Cokely. King was a preacher’s son. So he was a son of privilege. He was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. Sigma Pi Phi is highly exclusive fraternity, numbering only about 5,000. The organization is known as “the Boulé,” which means “a council of noblemen”. The organization never established college chapters. But it had a congenial relationship with Black college fraternities like the Alpha Phi Alpha’s of which King was a member. So one would guess that this is a maybe. But any notions of elitism are quickly dispelled by King’s actions. Blue bloods typically don’t expose themselves to police brutality, stabbings. death threats and white mob violence. So this criticism is as useless as a used condom.

Martin Luther King was a player

REBUTTAL: Martin Luther King Jr had extra-martial affairs. There were no shortage of women that were attracted to his eloquence and charisma. King was a caramel colored man of immeasurable brilliance. His status as the pre-eminent voice of the Civil Rights Movement attracted many women. Thus, while his spirit may have been strong, he surrendered to the carnality of the flesh. But he’s no R. Kelly. His episodes, while titillating, are not Zane sex novels.

The FBI, in its’ propaganda war against him, even advanced the notion that King was frequenting prostitutes. This was a LIE! The source of this propaganda was a trip that King and his aides took to Norway. While touring the slavic countries, it was alleged that several white female admirers came to see him at his hotel. Unbeknownst to King, the room was wired for sound and the FBI captured the dalliance on tape. They were movement groupies, not prostitutes. The FBI would later admit that this allegation was blatantly false.

Another woman by the name of Georgia Davis also had an episode with King the night before he was murdered. She published some of the tawdry details in a book entitled ” I Shared the Dream.” The book was released around the same time as that scurrilous piece of dry snitching released by King’s brother of the cloth: The Late Ralph D. Abernathy.

However, while his detractors are quick to point out his dalliances with women, they are not so quick to point out his tragedies. Such as in 1967, when he was approached by a mentally deranged black woman in New York and nearly stabbed to death while his security was somehow too far out of position to protect him. Or the fact that one of his female admirers was actually an FBI informant. Her name has not been released to this day. But she is alluded to in subsequent surveillance reports made during King’s travels.

They are also suspiciously quiet about the Black woman who was the love interest of one of his murderers. Betty Spates was the side chick and baby mama of Lloyd Jowers. Jowers was the man who assisted and contracted the sniper that shot King in Memphis on April 4th. (See the Boss and the Side Piece).

This information was revealed in the civil trial brought by the King Family against Jowers and the U.S Government in 1999. It’s public record. This information is not widely known for obvious reasons.

What Martin Luther King Jr was able to accomplish in 13 short years is nothing short of miraculous. His courage in the face of death is beyond simple heroism. He is so extra-ordinary that his short comings and flaws simply magnify his earthly divinity. The revelation of his flaws will simply make those of us who truly see him, love him that much more. But it is not blind allegiance or uncritical deference that draws this affection. It is a tacit acceptance of his supreme bravery and our hindsight cowardice. While we are still here talking, hating and critiquing, he is in the great beyond.

Even though he denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ at the age of 14, he was an imperfect being who personified the perfect sacrifice. He preached the gospel but smoked a Kool (cigarette). In the clutches of PTSD from numerous death threats and assassination attempts, he suffered constantly from random hiccups that somehow disappeared when he ascended the pulpit. Many nights he withdrew to the sanctuary of his bedroom with only a pint of liquor to treat his chronic insomnia.

But with all of his quirks, shortcomings and imperfections, he stepped out on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Surrounded by Judases, he stood out there alone. At the behest of a traitorous pastor who drew him out in the cross hairs of a waiting sniper, and unobstructed by the absence of a best friend who had suddenly remembered that he forgot his aftershave lotion, Martin Luther King Jr entered into martydom with a resolute acceptance of death.

So on this day when America tells us to honor him, let us agree to at least listen to him even as we misunderstand his meaning. Let us respect his sacrifice even as we denounce his achievements. And maybe, just maybe, the worst in us will see the best in him.

TONY MACEO is a senior blogger at the Negromanosphere and the Chief Blogger @ Power and strategy.com Like and share the article. Subscribe to the website. Support by paypal @wayofstrategy44@gmail.com or Become a Patron @PowerofStrategies on Patreon. Till Next time, I’ll HOLLA!