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 Askia At-Large
Askia Muhammad
Columnist Page
Friday, January 28, 2005; Page 11
King Holiday! King George Coronation?
There is a bitter irony in American history, a country born out of rebellion against a king. The only holiday on this country’s calendar that is named for a private citizen is named for the descendant of a slave named “King.”
The Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday was observed Jan. 17 by a thoughtful population and three days later President George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term. There are those, I am sure, who believe that the Bush inauguration was more than a simple Constitutional exercise, believing that the Divine Right of Kings was bestowed on our own Crusader George.
As in days of yore, the just concluded Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday sparked a media storm over a racist remark by a broadcaster this year, just as it did 19 years ago.
During a television weather report in Las Vegas Saturday morning Jan. 15, on what would have been Dr. King's 76th birthday, Rob Blair, a weather forecaster at KTNV- TV, inexplicably substituted the racial slur "coon" for the civil rights leader's last name while giving his forecast for the holiday weekend. The station management said the forecaster "stumbled," but fired him just the same.
In 1986, Washington deejay Doug Tract, known affectionately as “The Greaseman” made an even more vulgar and tasteless racist remark commenting about the King Holiday.
If killing Dr. King earned America a Holiday and a day off from work, said The Greaseman, then “killing four more will give us the whole week off.”
Would you believe? It took another 13 years and another vulgar, racist remark before Tract got what was coming to him. In 1999, after his insensitive mockery of the Jasper, Texas lynching of a Black man by dragging him for miles behind a pick-up truck, CBS-owned WARW-FM in Washington fired “The Greaseman.”
This time it seems he played a portion of a song on his morning drive-time show by hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill. Hill had been nominated for a record 10 Grammy awards that were set for presentation that night.
After the music, Tract said: “That’s why they drag them behind trucks.” That statement cost him his $1 million-plus per-year job. Soon after he apologized profusely for his admittedly “senseless, hurtful, racist-sounding words that I spewed out of my mouth.”
Well now, guess what Doug Tract? Guess what weatherman Rob Blair?
This year, Inauguration Day, was the second “holiday” in Washington during this year’s King Holiday week.
In fact, there was even a third “holy day” being celebrated last week, this one among the Muslim faithful all over the world. It’s Eid ul-Adha, The Feast of Sacrifice, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his own son Ishmael in obedience to God’s command, and it is the feast celebrating the end of the annual Hajj, or pilgrimage to the Holy City Mecca.
Insults such as Tract’s and Blair’s are nothing new in America. In 1909 a White mob rioted in Springfield, Illinois. The NAACP was founded in direct response to that race-riot.
It was not simply a cruel irony that the Springfield riot occurred in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown and where he was buried. The White mob was actually deliberately conducting the riot there, trying to make Lincoln turn over in his grave. They yelled, storming through Black neighborhoods screaming, ‘Lincoln freed you; we’ll show you where you belong,’
Well, I know that African Americans belong in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, in Cabinet offices, in governor’s mansions, and one day, I’m certain in the White House. The only unanswered question for me is: will there be a Black President sworn into office before Jan 20, 2025? That Inauguration Day will be on the Third Monday in January, the day of the official observance that year, of the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday.
Happy Holy Days. Season’s greetings. No American Royal Families! No Constitutional amendment to permit a Bush third term! |
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