#120. Martin Luther King Jr. Streets, Avenues and Lanes

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” has long thrilled audiences with its campy terror, disfigured gruesome villain and tawdry sexual innuendo. One of the most successful horror franchise, “Elm Street” has been the avenue that has led to ghastly nightmares for those who seen the films.

Black people love horror films, for they are frequently cast in minor roles that grant them the opportunity to show off their thespian skills by having the ignoble task of being the first character killed.

It is a well known fact that a Black person must be killed off first in a horror film, or else it cannot be classified in that particular film genre:

“Being a black person in a horror movie isn't easy. You're rarely the hero, hardly ever the villain, and more often than not you end up dead.”

“Elm Street” might be the origin of thousands of nightmares for people across the country, but this fictitious street is incapable of invoking the palpable fear that appears when people approach a real street that’s ubiquity across the nation rivals Starbuck’s.

Martin Luther King, the man behind the MLK Brand, eponymously adorns hundreds of streets, avenues and lanes across the United States:

“Streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr. can be found in many cities of the United States and in nearly every major metropolis in America. There are also a number of other countries that have honored King, including no fewer than ten cities in Italy. The number of streets named after King is increasing every year, and about 70% of these streets are in Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. King's home state of Georgia had the most, with 75 streets as of 2001;^[1] this had increased to 105 as of 2006.^[2]

As of 2003, there were over 600 American cities that had named a street after King.^[1] By 2004, this number had grown to 650, according to the NPR.^[3] In 2006, Derek Alderman, a cultural geographer at East Carolina University, reported the number had increased to 730, with only 11 states in the country without a street named after King.^[2]”

Black people find these streets so desirable an address that they frequently have addresses that reflect their admiration for the MLK Brand, as the Martin Luther King streets have an overwhelming Blackness to them:

Black comedian Chris Rock tells a joke that goes something like this: When a white friend told Chris Rock that he was on a street called Martin Luther King and asked what he should do, Chris Rock answered, "Run!" At another time and on a more serious note, Rock said: "I don't care where you live in America, if you're on Martin Luther King Boulevard, there's some violence going on."

He is right...

The black part of town that King Street passes through here in St. Petersburg, where I live and work, is a corridor of broad dilapidation, abandoned structures, vacant lots with junked vehicles and trash and debris, black-on-black violence, drug trafficking, public drinking, rudeness, indolence. Even worse, perhaps, most of the viable businesses on this stretch of MLK are owned by people other than blacks -- a testament to black powerlessness.

For many black communities, the streets named for King are their main streets. In some places, such as St. Petersburg, many white people use King street to travel to and from their homes each day, to and from work each day, to take their kids to and from school each day.

And what do these white people see?

In some parts of St. Petersburg, a wasteland.

Out of fear, they stop only when traffic lights or wrecks or other roadblocks stop them. Why else would they stop? For the same reason as whites -- fear -- many blacks also avoid the King streets in their cities.”

The businesses that are owned by individuals along MLK Drives, MLK BLVDs and MLK Avenues lack Black ownership for reasons that have nothing to do with Black powerlessness, but everything to do with saving money for the future (Black people know true Black feebleness is to be found in Haiti).

Take for instance this story from that Blackest of cities, Baltimore, where a Martin Luther King Parade near Martin Luther King Boulevard ended in a fitting tragedy that Shakespeare would have found difficult to properly write:

“A 19-year-old man was fatally shot in the face and two men were arrested on drug charges after fleeing police in separate incidents that occurred near the route for Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, according to Baltimore police.

About 2:30 p.m., after the parade had finished but with roads still shut down, an off-duty officer near the 600 block of W. Hoffman St. said he heard gunshots. Officers found a man inside an apartment in the 1000 block of Pennsylvania Ave., about two blocks from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his face and chest.”

This sad demise of yet another Black person(happened yesterday) along the aptly named Martin Luther King Boulevard has been repeated so many times in different states, that the death toll rivals “Elm Street’s” combined body count.

Yet the immutable bond that holds the tragedies together can be traced to the MLK Brand, for these streets are to found in areas where Blackness is a foregone conclusion, and whiteness is but the state of the faces of those who drive past these streets fearing for their safety.

In some places, renaming streets for the MLK Brand is so important that millions must be spent, while crime rages on unimpeded in the process.

Black people can even procure a book that chronicles white people braving the plethora of MLK streets across the nation:

“Jonathan Tilove, the Newhouse news service journalist whose coverage of race and immigration many consider the best and fairest in Big Media, has teamed up with photographer Michael Falco to create a small coffee-table book called Along Martin Luther King: Travels on Black America's Main Street. The two (white) men visited a sizable fraction of the 650 streets named after Dr. King—and returned with a valuable impressionistic portrait of the blackest streets in black America.

A dozen years ago, during the worst of the decade-long murder spree kicked off by the introduction of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s, undertaking this project would have been slightly nuts for a man like Tilove who has a wife and kids.”

It would be an enterprising endeavor if a camera-crew and an engaging interviewer would venture across the nation and produce a mini-series about the MLK streets that Google Maps can only show us:

“In 2002, on King’s birthday (and a few days before King’s national holiday), a teenager shot and wounded two students at – of all places – Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan. In 2004, in broad daylight, a hail of bullets left both dead and wounded victims on 125th Street (renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) and Madison Avenue in Harlem.

“His streets are only in ghettos,” said Tisa McNeil, a hairstylist at the Harlem Berry Beauty Lounge, located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. “It’s a racial thing. It all boils down to racism.”

There is no way to win this argument with Black people. It is racist if you name a street for the MLK Brand, and it is even worse if you fail to name a street for him.

Thankfully, some Disingenuous White Liberals are working hard to overcome the stereotype that even Chris Rock fell for regarding MLK streets, by gentrifying the houses along Martin Luther King Way in Seattle and pricing out the Blackness by making mortgages inaccessible to Black people’s pocket books:

“Fifteen years ago, when the time came for Seattle to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Karen Yoshihara had doubts about the chosen road: a no-nonsense eight-mile stretch that offered a straight shot through impoverished neighborhoods, a fading business district and a warehouse-lined industrial area.

Unlike the merchants who complained about the cost of changing their addresses, Yoshihara had another objection: She thought the road wasn't good enough for the man being honored.

"At the time I thought there might have been a more appropriate stretch of road," said Yoshihara, 55, who has lived near King Way since 1972. "It's not exactly the most beautiful street. It just didn't seem a fitting memorial."

Today, Yoshihara says she was wrong.

Over the years, as she has seen the street transformed, she has had a change of heart.

"Maybe Dr. King would have been proud," said Yoshihara while stopping at a doughnut shop near the Martin Luther King Jr. Market, where she works as a checker. "Now, I can't imagine it being called anything but Martin Luther King Way."

Named after a man whose primary legacy was his vision for a better future, the street itself seemed for years to have no future. Its houses were dilapidated, businesses were closing, and fear of crime - real and perceived - kept many people away…

George Noble, owner of Green Stone Properties, a real-estate agency based on King Way, said that when he started his business in 1984, the area was roughly 70 percent black, 20 percent white and 10 percent Asian. Now Asians make up about 30 to 40 percent of property owners, and blacks just 50 percent.

"I don't sell that many properties on this street to African Americans now," said Noble, who is black. "Most of my clients are Asians."

As Martin Luther King Jr. Way has been revitalized, so have property values. Many African Americans are leaving, moving to southern suburbs like Renton or Kent, where they can buy bigger houses for less money, Noble said.”

The Seattle Times – a major DWL paper – did an incredible of chronicling MLK Brand streets, and we at SBPDL encourage you to read all these stories of hope.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like will include Martin Luther King Jr. Streets, Avenues and Lanes, for these thoroughfares offer an insight into the state of Black America that might open more white eyes than the events unfolding in Haiti.

Not even Freddie Krueger offers as many frights as a drive down MLK Lane. Just be sure to lock your doors.

#115. The Martin Luther King Jr. Brand

We at SBPDL are walking on egg shells as we wish you all a Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! By mentioning the saint’s very name, do we incur the wrath of his progeny bent on squeezing every scintilla of profit from their fathers name?:

“For a man who preached unity and brotherhood, and so eloquently spoke about a dream that his children might grow up to be judged by the "content of their character", Martin Luther King appears to have enjoyed remarkably little success teaching those noble virtues to his own nearest and dearest.

The offspring of the late civil rights leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the struggle against racial segregation, are embroiled in an ugly dispute over plans for a Steven Spielberg film celebrating his life, times and legacy as a modern American icon.

In the 1990s, they successfully sued USA Today and CBS for publishing and broadcasting the "I Have a Dream" speech without paying for it, in what became a test case. In 1997, the estate signed a multimedia publishing deal with Time Warner, which was reportedly worth between $30m (£19m) and $50m.

Scholars have since accused King's family of denying them access to important research materials. Yet the estate nonetheless recently saw fit to sell rights to use the "I Have a Dream" speech in television advertisements, and have attempted to sell King memorabilia to private bidders via auction.

Last year, a further scandal erupted after it emerged that Dexter King had insisted on a payment of more than $800,000 being made for the use of his father's image and writings on a planned national memorial to Martin Luther King in Washington.”

Thus, we at SBPDL are fearful of any illegal intrusion into the copy-right protected pabulum of one Martin Luther King (MLK) and the wrath we could invite by daring offend the caretakers of the incredibly lucrative brand of MLK:

“The family is protective of how King is depicted, and Farris said any items that are inconsistent with his uncle's message and image would not be approved.

Any proceeds from King-Obama merchandise would also go to the King Center, said Farris, a member of the estate management team that reviews intellectual property issues.

The family, which refuses to divulge details of its licensing deals, is also discussing how to go after violators.

King's estate sued CBS over its sale of a video documentary that used excerpts of his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. An appeals court ruled in 1999 that the speech was covered by copyright and was not public domain, but the estate ultimately settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

"They are probably one of the most careful, concerned and on-top-of-it groups of image protectors I've ever met," said Philippa Loengard, assistant director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia University.”

The Brand of MLK is one dependent on keeping positive images of the Martin Luther King alive and resonating with the general public. The enduring myth of MLK is perpetuated by a chorus of Disingenuous white liberal’s and Crusading White Pedagogues who see in him the embodiment of hope manifested in shroud of sainthood.

By invoking his word from the “I have a Dream” speech, these white people believe themselves honorary Black people in the struggle to defeat racism once and for all with the powerful weapons of morality and merit.

Black people, sadly, have no use for either of these white groups, except for the enabling of the “This is a Black world” that we all live.

None of this would be possible without MLK’s “I have a Dream” speech, one which can’t be distributed without paying tribute to the King Family, for MLK copyrighted the speech. Indeed, the King Family has sued USA Today for daring to publish this famous address. The speech doesn’t belong to the public, for how else would the King Family make a living without the MLK Brand perpetually bringing in royalties for them to live off of like the Hugh Grant character from “About a Boy”?

The MLK Brand is proof that the dream of “money growing on trees” has come true, for the in the case of the King Family they see this reality daily. Take for instance the $32 million the city of Atlanta paid for the entire MLK Papers collection from Morehouse College. The King Family found a way to profit handsomely off of one –sell instead of an auction for all the goods that would have proven much less profitable for them:

Organizers of a civil and human rights museum planned for Atlanta said Wednesday that they are poised to pay $11.5 million left on a loan so they can acquire the rights to 10,000 documents belonging to Martin Luther King Jr.

“In June 2006, Atlanta's mayor led an 11th-hour coup to buy the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection for $32 million only days before its planned public auction at Sotheby's in New York. Organizers had pledged to pay off the loan in two years but had struggled in the economic downturn to raise donations.”

These papers were valued at half the amount the city of Atlanta paid for them, yet the MLK Brand continues to provoke a mythology that oozes green.

Bertrand Russell has something interesting to tell us regarding myths, though:

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.”

White people who cling to the myth of the MLK Brand do so for reasons that they deem honorable, as they yearn to be exonerated from the perceived historical stain of racism. By wearing the MLK Brand like the Nike Swoosh, these white people strive to show they truly believe in the halcyon words of the “I have a Dream” speech, never stopping to consider that Black people will never consider concession made by white people worthy of a full-pardon from their racist past.

Not even the election of Mein Obama fulfilled the MLK Brand and finally brought to life “The Dream”, for it must constantly be an unreachable and unfulfilled dream to ensure the King Family profits handsomely:

“The Dream is a continuing vision. It is not just a dream for black people but for all people who want to live in a society with peace, justice and equality. A dream that was started by Chrispus Attucks, a dream set in stone in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, a dream that many before King, like WEB DuBois, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Langston Hughes fought for before him and one that many others fought after his death. Obama not only is keeping that dream alive but he is inspiring millions more to do the same.”

Like the Nike Swoosh, the MLK Brand hides some uncomfortable truths behind its shiny edifice. Though 3^rd world children don’t sow its clothes, the MLK Brand does mask uncomfortable veracity about Black people in 2010 that some would deem hate facts.

Consider:

Given the state of black America, it is hard to quarrel with that analysis. Blacks are 13 percent of the population, yet black men account for 49 percent of America’s murder victims and 41 percent of the prison population. The teen birth rate for blacks is 63 per 1,000, more than double the rate for whites. In 2005, black families had the lowest median income of any ethnic group measured by the Census, making only 61 percent of the median income of white families.

Most troubling is a recent study released by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which concluded that the rate at which blacks born into the middle class in the 1960s backslid into poverty or near-poverty (45 percent) was three times that of whites—suggesting that the advances of even some of the most successful cohorts of black America remain tenuous at best. Another Pew survey, released last November, found that blacks were “less upbeat about the state of black progress now than at any time since 1983.”

Or, consult the CDC for more information about Black people in 2010. Well, just read through our archives...

It has been more than 42 years since MLK was killed in Memphis, and yet one wonders what MLK would say about Black people in 2010? Thankfully, Aaron McGruder showed us:

"WILL YOU IGNORANT NIGGAS PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP?!" The crowd is shocked.

King then goes on to ask: "Is this it? This is what I got all those ass-whoopings for?" He continues to refer to the audience repeatedly as "niggas" out of apparent frustration that the current generation of black people have willfully assumed the negative racial stereotypes associated with them. He goes on a tirade, attacking specific elements of black popular culture such as Black Entertainment Television, Michael Jackson, and Soul Plane. King concludes his speech by saying, "I've seen what's around the corner, I've seen what's over the horizon, and I promise you, you niggas have nothing to celebrate! And no, I won't get there with you. I'm going to Canada."

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the Martin Luther King Jr. Brand, for the myth behind MLK might be a cash cow for his family, but it hides a sad reality of the purported saint that can’t be kept quiet forever. In the end, those who can see will realize, like Russell, that the comfortable myths behind the MLK Brand were promulgated by feeble beings and absorbed by contemptible minds. When that day comes is still a mystery, but it will come.

Though lucrative for his family, the MLK Brand is built upon a foundation of lies. No amount of dreams and wishful thinking can deny this.

Black people know this fact about the MLK Brand, just like those who wear Nike clothing do so with knowledge it was knit by 3rd world laborers earning 10 cents an hour.

Pre-Obama America was supplanted thanks in large part to the MLK Brand's Universalist principles and appeal, though, which tells you a lot about the gullibility of people.

#227. The Martin Luther King Jr. Monument

Soon to stand resolute in the same city where monuments to racist slaveholders attract millions every year will be the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. This towering memorial to Martin Luther King will be erected to remind all of the sins of Pre-Obama America and the still unfulfilled promise of Mr. King’s “I have a Dream” from finally coming to fruition… at some point.

You see, invoking the famous Martin Luther King “I have a Dream” speech and praising the eventuality of reaching the infamous “content of character instead of color of skin” racially blind society fails to consider the actuality that Black people are desirous of living in a society completely devoid of merit.

If the axiom Martin Luther King (MLK) uttered so long ago were to be fully integrated in 2010, Black people would find themselves in a perilous situation, much worse than what they faced in 1963. Recall, the primary reason Michael Oher was adopted – he was a large, homeless Black male who could play football – and the underlying justification for billions of dollars being sent to prop up the failed Black state of Haiti – so that a Black person-led nation won’t collapse – have absolutely nothing to do with character at all. Just color.

Black people know this monument in Washington DC is not the crowning achievement of some superficial “I have a Dream” movement or the culmination of a century’s old struggle to “overcome” racism in all its insidious forms. All the monument represents is a perverse “wet dream” by disingenuous white liberals (DWLs) who see MLK as an embodiment of the Token Black whose elocution was coherent enough and scholarship ever so close to being original, that he could pass as the righteous leader whom all who come after would find no fault in.

Indeed, hagiographers of King’s life we all are now. Just like those who will stand in awe of the 30-foot statue of his likeness that will soon grace the nation mall in Washington DC, the giant shadow he casts over history acts as a get-out-of-jail card for all Black people and any porous behavior on their part.

“Judge by the content of character,” is the reply levied by any Black person, DWL or other person confronted with Hate Facts.

However, the ingratiating and sycophantic manner in which DWLs heap love and admiration toward MLK doesn’t persuade Black people that his mission has been accomplished, nor that it should be finalized.

Black people instinctively understand racism will never be overcome in the United States, regardless of the concessions made by a placid white population bent on appeasing their Black overseers in any way, shape or form.

Even with the election of Mein Obama, Black people realize that calling a cease-fire in the Civil Rights struggle would amount to capitulation in the war to “shakedown” America and keep a true meritocracy – what MLK envisioned in his famous “I have a Dream” speech – from ever being implemented in this nation.

Regardless, Black people know the statue gives them a foot-print finally in Washington DC, since so many people consider Benjamin Banneker’s work on designing that city a myth and visitors to the district will see the true founding father of America honored finally:

“Atlanta resident Lea Winfrey Young says the "outsourcing" by U.S. companies and organizations to China has gone too far this time. She and her husband, Gilbert Young, a painter, are leading a group of critics who argue that an African American -- or any American -- should have been picked for such an important project.

"Dr. King's statue is to be shipped here in a crate that supposedly says 'Made in China.' That's just obscene," Winfrey Young says…

The statue Lei is creating -- which at 28 feet will be a full nine feet taller than the statue in the Jefferson Memorial -- will be the centerpiece of the tribute to King. The memorial will span four acres near the Tidal Basin between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, facing Jefferson.

Visitors will first walk through a grove of spruce and magnolia trees by a waterfall and read a selection of the civil rights leader's famous words carved on walls. At the end of their walk, they will see King's likeness emerging from a chunk of granite.

Lei said there was much internal debate at the foundation about how King should look. Some thought the statue should reflect King as an ambassador of peace. Some wanted to present his urbane, intellectual side. Still others wanted to make him into a towering heroic figure. "If there are 1,000 readers of 'Hamlet,' " Lei said, "you will have 1,000 interpretations."

The cost of the MLK statue is a paltry $120 million, thankfully paid for by gracious individuals and corporations bent on paying homage to the Patron Saint of Diversity, MLK, so that these “sacrifices” will bold well for their futures, much like sacrifices to the Gods of old. Sadly, of those who have paid monetary tribute to the MLK statue, a shocking percentage have gone bankrupt, including General Motors, Lehman Brothers and the Circuit City Foundation, not to mention Fannie May.

The checks cleared thankfully from those ill-fated company’s and the MLK statue will be chiseled into reality by a Chinaman, whose final vision of the 20^th century’s most towering individual is one criticized for its artistically bellicose nature:

“A powerful federal arts commission is urging that the sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr. proposed for a memorial on the Tidal Basin be reworked because it is too "confrontational" and reminiscent of political art in totalitarian states.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts thinks "the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed statue recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries," commission secretary Thomas Luebke said in a letter in April.”

This is precisely how Black people want MLK to be recalled, as an “angry Black man” defiant to the end and even in death, continuing the war upon white people and America, for no amount of mea culpa’s from white people can absolve them of their collective racist past.

Black people will not rest though, until those iconic monuments to white people are removed from Washington DC, for these statues represent a true totalitarian past and a vivid, constant reminder of the historic stain that haunts the soul of Black folks’.

Still, the MLK monument is included in the register of Stuff Black People Don’t Like, for at only 30-feet the statue will hardly compare to the Washington or Lincoln Memorials. Overshadowed by white people is one thing, but overshadowed by slave-holding and racist white people is a sin heads must roll over.