MLK 2011

He would’ve lost me with the dogs. I’d like to think I’m the kind of guy who rises to the occasion, who’s willing to grit his teeth and stand on principal when it matters most. I like being able to sit wherever I want on a bus, even though I’m always a little bitter when I find out I have to ride the bus in the first place. I like living in a country that has enough self-corrective legal devices built into it to flush out heinousness like segregation and the 3/5 compromise. I like being able to vote, even though I don’t vote most of the time. Sometimes I like not voting just to see how much it angers people who do vote. I like not going to work every third Monday in January, watching CNN or the History Channel all morning and getting to hear Tom Brokaw talk about something other than “The Greatest Generation”. I like being able to walk down the street with my Russian girlfriend without wondering if one of us is going to catch a brick to the temple or incite a lynch mob on the way to the general store. I like all those things. A lot. But I really don’t like dogs.

I don’t small dogs. I don’t like loud dogs. I don’t like friendly dogs. I don’t like dogs that greet you by shoving their face in your groin and crack. I don’t like dogs with papers. I don’t like dogs that take forty-five minutes to decide where they want to take a squat (Seriously dog, what do you care where you drop it? We gotta pick it right up anyway, and while it’s still warm too, yay.). I don’t like old dogs. I don’t like gassy dogs. I don’t like slobbering dogs. I don’t like energetic dogs. I don’t like YOUR dog. I don’t have a dog, but if I ever have kids, they’ll probably unify just long enough to coerce me into getting them a dog, and I’m pretty sure I won’t like that bitch either.

So if that’s the fun end of the dog spectrum, how much less comfortable do you think I am with attack dogs? Attack dogs that have been trained to go to town on human forearms like a fresh milk bone, ripping through meat and splintering bone with a glee reserved for velociraptors and Eli Roth movies. Did I mention these are attack dogs under the command of belligerent Southern police officers, whose general state of under-educated, over-entitled blue-collar pissed offedness kicks into extra special high gear at the thought of a mob of meaty looking, sweat-marinated black folk asking for stuff like rights? Fire hoses don’t get anybody’s attention. You can see that on any episode of “Jackass” or “Wipeout”. Dogs, people. Angry-ass slightly malnourished German Shepherds, on a hot summer Selma sidewalk, faced with a buffet of people sporting oh-so snackable appendages and very rip-able trousers, all putting erection-inducting fear pheromones in the air. Dogs, people. That’s how you shut down a movement, or at least make sure Mike stays his unbitten buns at home and watches the march on TV.

Except for that tricksy Dr. King. Who would’ve guessed a slow-talking pacifist could be so tough? To put himself in harm’s way. To put strangers in harms way. How smooth a talker do you have to be to convince people want to put themselves in harm’s way?
“Hey you wanna come eat at this diner with me?”
“Isn’t it segregated?”
“Well we’ll just go sit down and refuse to leave until they serve us. I should tell you they’ll probably beat us up, and there’s a good chance one or both of us may end up in jail, or hanged.”
“Well that doesn’t sound like too high a price to pay for cornbread…”
“There might be dogs.”
“Oh man, I just remembered, I totally gotta stay home that day and NOT get bitten by dogs. Good luck to you though, sounds like a really great cause. Let me know if you need anything… other than help, time or money.”

So it’s 1:30 in the morning on Monday the 17th and I am grateful. Grateful that more than forty years after his death, Dr. King’s legacy is still rippling forward and gaining new forms of traction. Grateful that somebody proved it is possible to affect real change in this country by taking the high road. Grateful that even a violent death can not overshadow the power of a peaceful life. Grateful that I have the right to vote, or not vote, depending on who I want to piss off, that I’m 5/5 of a person either way, regardless of who’s irritated by my views or apparent apathy. I’m grateful that I can drink water, eat and go to the bathroom wherever I want, that I can hang out with and date whoever I want, and that I can sleep in every third Monday in January and hear Tom Brokaw talk about something other than “The Greatest Generation”. I'm grateful there are no dogs in here as I'm writing this. Most of all, I’m grateful that at least for the time being no one’s going to ask me to pretend like I’m brave, stare down an armada of angry-ass, slightly malnourished German Shepherds and/or ruin a perfectly good set of trousers. Better men and women than me have already done the hard work, I just have to concentrate on not wasting it.