Heroes and Holidays

In the world of important diversity and justice work there is a regular admonishment against the Heroes and Holidays approach. And here we are, on a Hero and Holiday occasion - MLK Day.

The admonition arises from the notion that honoring a “hero” or celebrating a holiday fosters a fleeting feel-good moment, after which we return to unmitigated racial injustice with a white-washed conscience. We recite or listen to “I Had a Dream” or “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” while doing little about the intractable nightmare of racial injustice and the disproportionate number of Black men in jail.

There are many reasons to question this particular hero and holiday. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a serial philanderer. When raising this issue I know I am in the minority, but evidence mounts that his womanizing included proximity to sexual violence and scores of inappropriate affairs with parishioners and others over whom he had power. Much of this evidence was gathered by way of a vicious J. Edgar Hoover FBI campaign to discredit King, but the viciousness of the “gathering” does not invalidate the facts.

The idea that “great” men are often flawed is thoroughly unconvincing. It is as though an insatiable appetite for justice is understandably accompanied by an insatiable appetite for women. While King’s work on behalf of racial and economic justice merits its place in our history, his appetites, like those of so many “heroes,” are more closely aligned with power.

These contradictions implicit in lionizing King are far from the only problems with celebrating his legacy. It is impossible to find a conservative objection to DEI work or affirmative action that doesn’t include allusion to “content of character,” a phrase taken out of context to suggest that King didn’t think we should focus on color of skin.

The establishment of a federal holiday in his honor has symbolic value of course, but that too is a double edged sword. Pausing to pay lip service to King has never induced Republican lawmakers to support the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act or the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day requires nothing, enforces no rights, and rights no wrongs.

It is similar to other hero-making that fuels the delusion of a post-racism America. The conspicuous success of some Black athletes and entertainers has long enabled a conservative myth of endless upward mobility and exhortations to pull up on non-existent bootstraps. For decades the success of the few is used to bludgeon the well-being of the many.

Since I may have offended some readers I might as well offend the rest of you! (Or at least a few more.)

There is a striking parallel in the worship of religious icons, including the world champion icon of all time - Jesus Christ. A schism in Christianity opened with the debate between idolatry - a Biblical no-no - and icons, which many Christians worship as a matter of faith. An essay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art describes the issue: “Fear that the viewer misdirected his/her veneration toward the image rather than to the holy person represented in the image lay at the heart of this controversy.”

It is self-evident that a significant portion of the contemporary Christian right is remarkably unChristian in thought and action - like their icon/idol, who famously cited “Two Corinthians,” demonstrating his biblical illiteracy. Nonetheless, the iconography is ubiquitous. Crosses everywhere, Commandments in classrooms, prayer breakfasts in Congress and public displays of sanctimony (that the Bible expressly discourages.)

Then, just as the MLK Day-celebrating Republicans do to John Lewis and George Floyd, these “good” Christians deny food to the starving, hate thy immigrant neighbor and cherish the insurrection more than the Resurrection.

To paraphrase the Met, too many Americans misdirect their veneration toward the heroes and the holidays rather than to the substance of the issues we face.

With that, I wish you a happy, reflective holiday!