America the Brutalful

 ***

“What I am saying today is… ‘America you must be born again!'”[8]

~ Martin Luther King

I was born in an American town that lynched an elephant and burned a black man’s bullet-riddled corpse for public spectacle. I was literally born into the hands of my grandfather, Pappy, who pulled me into the light from my mother’s womb, and who caused that light to dim when he called Martin Luther King a goddamn communist nigger in my presence as a child.

Martin Luther King was not a communist; he was a socialist. He understood that America was engineered to be racist for profit; moreover, he understood the engineers could not stop, that they would be required by their insatiable, hubristic gluttony to manipulate the very world for their personal gain. He knew the planet was their game board. He would understand that al-Qaeda and ISIS were created by America’s sabotaging of Middle Eastern societies in order to secure their choke-hold on the oil fields. He knew how the engineers rolled. In a speech delivered to the 1967 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he proclaimed:

“Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. “[9]

His focus had shifted to populist economic reform. On November 14, 1966, he warned his staff that when you go after capitalism “you are really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with the captains of industry.” He began organizing the Poor People’s Campaign to win economic justice for the nation’s poor. He planned to bring caravans of poor folks of all races to Washington D.C. and camp them at the National Mall to bring attention to poverty. He called for an Economic Bill of Rights, a guaranteed wage, full employment, an end to the Vietnam War and a massive government investment in the ghettos.

On March 29, 1968, a week before he planned to march with striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, he declared: “This is not a race war; it is now a class war.”[10]

Six day later he was murdered.

Martin Luther King was a great American. The eternal testimony to his greatness can be found in the ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’, written in April, 1963 from the pit of America the Brutalful in response to a letter titled ‘A Call for Unity’, penned by eight prominent white southern clergymen and published in The Birmingham News.  ‘A Call for Unity’ was really a call for the brutal status quo of American apartheid; it was the frocked, robed echo of hate.

‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ is one of the most important documents ever written, not just as it relates to American history, but to the story of the world itself, because it demonstrates how beautiful, how strong and courageous and forgiving and loving a human being can be. The words radiate a higher form of consciousness that describes Martin Luther King’s remarkable character; they resonate as if written by an emissary from a cosmological civilization trying to point cavemen towards enlightenment. ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ serves as both a mirror reflecting our brutal past and present, and as a light illuminating the path forward.

Forward. I cannot travel back and lead Pappy into the light of Martin Luther King’s mind, even though it shines forever as bright as a quasar. I cannot go back and free Papa King from the chains of his managed ignorance.  As long as I live, however, I will stand free in that light for both. But make no mistake, America today is managed by men who think like Pappy. Beneath them are millions of the managed like Papa King.

America will forever be racist, xenophobic, and menacing to all things exploitable as long as it is owned and operated by a money-grubbing gang of global godfathers. The godfathers must be pointed towards enlightenment. Or pushed. Truly enlightened minds cannot place profit over people, nor can they exploit the vulnerable. Enlightened minds cannot engineer societies deaf to the cries of human need and suffering, nor torture the world in pursuit of wealth and power.

Martin Luther King had a vision of something better he often referred to as “The Beloved Community,” described so beautifully on The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change website:

“Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

I don’t stand alone in the light. There are good folks all over America that welcome its radiance.  There are plenty of good folks all over this tiny planet who believe the Beloved Community would be a beautiful thing, who believe we should live lives prepping for a better future instead of doomsday, and who imagine a world where people take precedence over profit, and where cultures coexist and evolve together freely through the transmuting energy of love.

May freedom one day ring for all.

Kent Monroe lives in Troy, New Hampshire with his girlfriend and a gang of motley cats and dogs. He prefers to write and garden, but must work when he can to feed the gang. He believes people should smile as often as possible. He frequently contributes to The Missing Slate.

 

[1] Eric Williams, “Capitalism and Slavery” (The University of North Carolina Press, 1944), p. 19.

[2] Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations”, The Atlantic, June 2014.

[3] James Loewen, “Lies My Teacher Told Me” (Simon and Schuster, 2007), p. 144.

[4] James Loewen, op. cit. (Simon and Schuster,2007), p. 171.

[5] W.E.B. Dubois, “The Souls of Black Folks,” Chapter 1, p.3.

[6] Sheldon Wolin, “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism,” (Princeton University Press, 2008), 284.

[7] Werner Sombart, “Why is There No Socialism in the United States?” Translated by Patricia M. Hocking and C.T. Husbands (M.E. Sharpe, 1976), 3.

[8] From the speech “Where Do We Go From Here?” delivered at the 11th Annual SCLC Convention

Atlanta, Ga., 16 August 1967

[9] From the speech “Where Do We Go From Here?” delivered at the 11th Annual SCLC Convention

Atlanta, Ga., August 1967

[10] Coretta Scott King, “My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr. (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 312.