Sugarcoat It

Sugar Coat It

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never met the man. Never shook his hand.

Or had coffee with him.

Though I would have liked to.

I wonder if he took cream and sugar in his java (and if, in ironies of all ironies, he used Equal)?

Or maybe he just drank it black.

I know what he stood for, what he represented.

I support his spirit in our time.

You can easily google his name and find him in the likes of company like Gandhi and Jesus.

Happy hour anyone?

Of course we would have to invite Confucius, Plato and Hades…just to keep it interesting.

And maybe Elvis too. After all, they were both kings and did some jail time. (See Video)

I’m sure Martin was a down-to-earth kind of guy. Wore mismatched socks occasionally, sang the wrong lyrics to a song and maybe even tailgated. (I’m talking about the angry driver-following-too-closely kind of tailgating, although, the RV, beer, chips and dip kind would be funny to imagine as well. And perhaps, in even more irony of ironies, the road that he tailgated on became one of the hundreds of streets in America named after him.)

Point is, he used what he had, whatever you want to call it –power, persuasion- to make some change register to people.

Do I support it? Yes. Practice it? Probably not.

How does one go about calculating equality?

For instance: The religion you subscribe to? It may determine how much of my time is delivered to your doorstep.

The political party you’re affiliated with could decide if I favor you over another.

The school you attended? Economic status? Type of car you drive?

That just might get us some extra mileage on the highway together.

Type of occupation you’re in may determine if I consider you part time or full time.

The computer you carry and the type of phone you sling around may factor into the (e) quality time we spend together.

And the facebook profile you present may get you bookmarked into my favorites…or not.

Ouch.

Yes, the ideas Mr. King had thrown around still apply today, especially considering million of Americans are without health insurance:

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”