APOLOGY TO DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING:

Dr. King on behalf of my brothers and sisters I apologize for our behavior.

I’m sure that on this day back in 1968 when you lay on that balcony – mortally wounded – surrounded by Benedict Arnold turncoat race traitors within your inner circle – race traitors who were complicit in your shooting – I’m sure you never imagined that 44 years on from that fateful day (April 4th) that we would be openly calling each other NIGGER and have the whole world singing along, having convinced ourselves it’s a term of endearment.

I apologize for the historical amnesia that so many of us labor under. We have no knowledge of ourselves, of the pain and suffering that our forefathers and foremothers went through as well as the day to day struggle but we can recount at the drop of a hat how Chris Brown beat Rhiannas ass.

I apologize for the fact that you went to prison on behalf of our struggle and it inspired you to write the classic, LETTERS FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL” – nowadays artists go to jail and it inspires nothing but a spike in their CD sales.

Dr. King I apologize because seemingly we have learned nothing and as a result we are doomed to repeat a lot of the same mistakes. We are still behaving like crabs in a barrel…if one of us makes it up the rest of us try to pull him/her back down. Your assassins were more unified than we are.

Dr. King you went abroad to receive your Nobel Peace prize and represented us on international shores…nowadays Kanye and Jay Z (two of our supposed best and brightest) are representing us on international shores with a song called “NIGGERS IN PARIS”.

Oh Dr. King I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

If there’s any solace to be gleaned from your tragic passing it’s that when you took one in the neck you were on a balcony surrounded by your staff…Malcolm X took seventeen bullets in his chest in FRONT OF HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN, Medgar Evers took two in the back in the driveway of his home in front of his wife and children courtesy of that cowardly Klansman Byron DeLa Beckwith.

Dr.King would you please tell them that we’re sorry too?

You know Dr.King we’re so far gone that we have allowed ourselves to believe that there’s a distinction between someone calling us the “N” word and their ending it with an “A” as opposed to an “ER”…as if that’s supposed to make it alright.

Dr.King if you see Harriet Tubman, tell her that once more some of us need to be led out of the darkness and into the light.

Tell Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington that we’re sorry also. Time was we would be killed for trying to read and educate ourselves and nowadays the old adage ,

“…if you want to keep a secret from a black man, just hide it in a book…” seems truer than ever.

DR. KING it would appear that you death was in vain…James Brown told us to be BLACK AND PROUD…nowadays we just want to be paid and proud…no matter what the cost.

Our obsession with material things as opposed to spiritual will prove to be our downfall.

Yes there’s a black man in the White House and a black first lady…but that move was designed and calculated to allow White America to pat themselves on the back in a self congratulatory look – how – far – we’ve come move while doing nothing to erase the age old problems.

Dr. King I pray that you are resting in peace with Coretta right by your side.

You may run into a young man by the name of Trayvon Martin whose recent demise was proof positive that ain’t a damn thing changed but the weather. I don’t know how much he knows of you, but please fill him in and wrap your arms around him. He truly wasn’t supposed to meet you just yet.

Again I hope I haven’t been too presumptuous…no one asked me to speak for all black people but I felt compelled.

You did so much for us and look how we’re repaid you.

We owe you so much more.

THANK YOU FOR HAVING WALKED AMONGST US.

YOU WERE A MAN AMONGST MEN.


“I THANK GOD FOR MUSIC!”
– CARLTON J. SMITH