It's the holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, and I'm not sure what to write about. This is odd, as the man is one of my heroes, and civil rights activism is something I feel very strongly about.
I don't know if anyone else caught the new episode of The Boondocks last night on Adult Swim (if not, it will be replayed this Saturday at 11 pm - WATCH IT), but it really made me think.
(As an aside, have I ever mentioned that I love The Boondocks? If not, then I'm telling you now. I've been a fan of the comic for years, and the show is even better. The animation is great, the voice actors are talented, and the stories are to die for. When I feel as though the whole world is going mad, I can look at this show and know that there's at least one other person out there who is still sane, who, should I ever have the honor to meet him, understands the frustration I feel.)
I've been thinking about how Mr. King would be treated if he were alive today. I've been thinking about what he fought for. I've been thinking about the progress that we've made since he was shot. I've been thinking about the progress that we haven't made.
I have a lot of thoughts, but I don't have a lot of words.
I do love The Boondocks, very much. (Am I shallow because I love Riley best? I just want to pick him up and hug him, even though he would slap me down.) But it's a great strip - I've yet to see the show - and it was, I think, the first thing that EVER drove home for me that racism is still alive. I used to think that racism wasn't real, and this was because I applied it only to blacks vs. whites. In the town I lived in, there were relatively few black people... that I ever met ... and that meant, to me, that there was no racisms, because Travis and Mike got along well enough with me. But then I got to thinking that we used the same sorts of words to the Mexicans, and ... Aaron Magruder was the first person who ever told me about that.
I love Aaron Magruder and the stories he tells because even though he is obviously so furious that he can barely summon the calmness to set pen to paper, his fury is because of his love and his conviction that we can know better; that we do know better.
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I do love The Boondocks, very much. (Am I shallow because I love Riley best? I just want to pick him up and hug him, even though he would slap me down.) But it's a great strip - I've yet to see the show - and it was, I think, the first thing that EVER drove home for me that racism is still alive. I used to think that racism wasn't real, and this was because I applied it only to blacks vs. whites. In the town I lived in, there were relatively few black people... that I ever met ... and that meant, to me, that there was no racisms, because Travis and Mike got along well enough with me. But then I got to thinking that we used the same sorts of words to the Mexicans, and ... Aaron Magruder was the first person who ever told me about that.
I love Aaron Magruder and the stories he tells because even though he is obviously so furious that he can barely summon the calmness to set pen to paper, his fury is because of his love and his conviction that we can know better; that we do know better.
And you are another one of those people.
t¬