Wash It Clean

by cojsmithblog

Last Friday Donald John Trump proclaimed that today would be a day of remembrance for Dr Martin Luther King Junior. As he left the room a journalist asked him a question in good faith, “Are you a racist?” He obviously ignored that question, as he has ignored virtually every attempt to seek truth. There were people in that room with him, and none of them could bring themselves to definitively refute premise of the question, because it is at this point a forgone conclusion. A man can only show you the absence of his heart so many times before you have to acknowledge that it’s not your eyes that have failed to see anything there. And on this day we are told to remember Dr King.

There is, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, an inconspicuous marker in honor of Dr King. It is stepped on daily by people who simply don’t realize it is there. On a daily basis, the generally malice-less ignorance of sightseers crushes dirt and grit into the inscription that humbly marks the spot where on August 28, 1963, Dr King delivered a speech for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. What more fitting a memorial could there be?

I have often lamented that many people only have a vague understanding of the entirety of Dr King’s struggles, and that for most people it is the case that they would struggle to utter any significant words of Dr King. Of those who can, the vast majority only know a snippet or two from that one speech he delivered in Washington, which are frequently misinterpreted and distorted to become an attack on any who believe that the cause of the Civil Rights Movement is not yet done. Indignity after indignity, lobbed against the very memory of Dr King on a daily basis.

But now here we are. A man who dodged the draft of the Vietnam War multiple times dodges uncomfortable questions on a day he was supposed to consecrate the memory of a man, who I guarantee you he doesn’t know, worked diligently to end the Vietnam War. A man whose father has a checkered history of supporting the KKK, a man who has been sued for discriminating against potential tenants, a man who took out a full page ad calling for the death penalty to be reinstated against five innocent people of color, a man who refers to nations like Haiti in terms I won’t repeat here; that man is the distilled muck that is ground into the memory of Dr King every day from his position of prominence.

In pockets across America, there are still those who refuse to even give this minuscule dignity to the memory of Dr King, who choose instead to commemorate the birthdays of traitors. They are, perhaps without exception, avid supporters of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They are, I expect, quite glad to see that Dr King’s memory has been eroded and tarnished. Perhaps they knowingly grind filth into the inscription on those steps, but I’m here to tell you that intended or not they are joined by the ranks of countless people who choose to not know and to not know better in demeaning the memory of Dr King. Their numbers are amplified and disguised by the countless many of us who choose not to see and choose not to learn and choose not to speak out.

It will not be today and it will not be tomorrow, but there will come a day when the stench that emirates from that odious bigot in chief dissipates. There will be a day when this country can reckon with its crimes, long past and ongoing. There will be a day when we as a people can remember the entirety of Dr King’s message of hope for the despondent poor and neglected; Dr King’s message of disgust at the indifference of the well-meaning, silent masses; Dr King’s message of urgency for the necessity of peace at home and abroad; Dr King’s message of justice for crimes committed against so many. When the sun rises on that day, when the specter of fascism and bigotry and ignorance has permanently vacated positions of prominence, I hope I will be there to go to that inscription with pure water to scrub the muck off. That I might wash away all that has been trod deep into the memory of Dr King. That I might join with all my fellow patriots to wash it clean.