A few years ago, I wrote a poem about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and that poem elicited some comments that basically intimated that Dr. King and all the others who were part of the Civil Rights struggle actually made no gains, period. Now, we can argue over it all day and all night as to whether or not Dr. King and crew were successful in their endeavors, but one thing I would like you to do is to continue reading and decide for yourself. And I will give Dr. King one thing, he tried….. something. Whether or not it was the right thing? You tell me.
Of Dr. King, We Are Just So Proud!
Of Dr. King, we are just so proud.
That man, he always drew a crowd.
He paved the way to a much brighter day.
His dream is alive in every way.
Tamir Rice is here to tell his story.
And Sandra Bland has no need to ever worry,
that her life will be snuffed out in a cell,
because Dr. King, he rang the freedom bell.
Michael Brown is in college where he belongs.
Eric Garner is in church singing spiritual songs.
Walter Scott is still driving down the street.
Freddie Gray is sitting down to a meal to eat.
They all owe their lives to Dr. King.
He said, “Let freedom ring! Let freedom ring!”
On the mountaintop, he saw through space and time.
And yet, they killed him while he was in his prime.
We thank him for the debt he willingly paid,
and for all the sacrifices he and his family made.
But what we will never know for certain,
is how he would react when they finally raise the curtain,
on a show that is a tragedy of the darkest kind,
and where Blacks are still left so far behind.
This play will not have a happy ending,
for its ending is just like its beginning.
Behold, the face of slavery is still Black.
And as in days of old, we are under attack.
But a man had a dream for which he died.
Was it all for naught? I’ll let you decide!
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2016 Shelby I. Courtland
I want you to take some time to reflect on the question I posed. “Was it all for naught?” If Black people have made so many gains in the decades since the Civil Rights Movement, then where are they? If we as a people have ‘moved’ forward, then where are the results? #BLACKLIVESMATTER? Give me a break! If we as a people had moved, there would be no need for the #BLACKLIVESMATTER Movement, now would there? The incarceration rate for Black men is off the charts. Millions of Black people live in deep poverty and a ridiculously high number of them are Black children. Millions of Black people are jobless, homeless and hungry and lack healthcare. But here we are, about to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Day. Celebrate what, I ask you? Tell me! What is there to celebrate? Staggering unemployment figures for Black youth and young adults? A homelessness epidemic? Mass incarceration? A school-to-prison pipeline? Out-of-control racist KKKops brutalizing and murdering unarmed Black people? Grand Juries that refuse to hand down indictments on racist thugs with badges? Gun violence in Black communities that are so impoverished as to be likened to 3rd world nation conditions?
And yet the ‘whites’ sit back and gleefully point the finger at what is going down in communities of color and point to how ‘violent they are when they know why. Whites know that this is all done by design, but it is so easy for them to live in their little ‘white bread’ world and hurl invectives and “I told you sos” when ‘whites’ are hell bent on gentrifying neighborhoods that once housed Black people because the suburbs was once the place to be if you were ‘white’. You sit somewhere with your holier-than-thou attitudes as though your shit don’t stink. You shamelessly and callously wish death on a group of people who were not responsible for being dragged to this hellhole you call, America. You strut around like proud peacocks, puffing your chests out and pretending that you’re not rotten filth when you are actually worse than that. And you have the unmitigated gall to pretend to acknowledge Dr. King with your phony ass displays of righteous indignation over the brutal treatment he received at the hands of you ‘whites’. You have the nerve to speak his name, to post his “I Have A Dream” speech as though you ever did a thing to help bring his dream to fruition. You’ve done everything possible to see to it that his dream was never realized and you are not fit to read his name, much less speak it. Why you have not burst into flames upon speaking his name is a complete and utter mystery to me because all that should be left of you is ‘white’ ash!
The above is what I also posted along with the poem and next, I am going to post a comment about this particular post and my response.
hunglikejesus wrote:
Just skip to the five minute mark when she says, “The kids are out of school on Monday and we don’t even know why.” Also, her sixteen year old daughter did not even know why she is out of school today. Seriously???!!!! Too busy staring down at shit on a phone, most likely is the reason and the mother is just too dizzy for words.
This is what we have to work with these days and it is quite obvious, that we have nothing to work with. So you tell me, what was it all for? Cluelessness? Ignorance? Gluttony? Youtube channels? Twitter? Facebook?
Black Amerikkka is dealing with rabid racism, gentrification, income inequality, mass incarceration, a school-to-prison pipeline, disparities in healthcare, child poverty, a homeless epidemic, crime infested neighborhoods, drugs and gangs and prostitution that is out-of-control and the list of the like is endless and yet, here we are ‘celebrating’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Day. For what? And in less than two weeks, we shall be expected to ‘celebrate ‘Black History Month’. Why? Because I have just described ‘Black History’ up to present day and so what is there to celebrate? You tell me. I can’t wait.
shelbycourtland 
shelbycourtland’s response:
HLJ, this isn’t so much about me revering Dr. King as it is about exposing the blatant and outrageous hypocrisy of the ‘whites’. They are the very ones who go on and on about Dr. King’s ‘dream’ when it is quite obvious that they gave not a damn for the man nor his dream. They spout useless rhetoric each and every time the holiday in his name comes around and that is all they do. And while they are doing this, the continuation of enslavement of Black people continues, the continuation of the Negro status as that of 3rd class ‘citizen’ continues. We aren’t even tolerated in this shithole. We are incarcerated and murdered and yet the ‘whites’ go on and on about how thankful Blacks should be since we are supposedly living in the ‘greatest nation on earth’. I fucking beg to differ with that assessment. Black people are a people without a country. We are enslaved in a system that is corrupt to its core and is filled with racist filth and we are expected to subjugate ourselves to criminals of the worst kind.
Dr. King was but a tool and he was used to put down any attempt at an insurrection, a rebellion or a revolution. The ‘whites’ condoned the actions of Dr. King because he was their namby-pamby house Negro; the same as Barack Obama and all the rest of the coon head sell-outs that bow and scrape to the ‘white’ motherfuckers and lick their boots clean while scrabbling for their table scraps at the same time. I am not giving any accolades to Dr. King because he was no revolutionary, he was a stooge. My poem is a sarcastic and antonymous portrayal of Dr. King. That is why I stated that because of Dr. King, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Walter Scott and so many others have him to ‘thank’ for their lives. My point is to also show how far we have NOT come even with these so-called ‘movements’ that are merely fake assed props that are put in place to give Black people the illusion that they are actually doing something constructive to put a stop to the genocide of them by the ‘whites’. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Dr. King was just a figurehead, a prop; complete with suit and tie and bible. He was the ‘white’ mans house nigger and he did a fine of job of spreading the ‘white’ man’s propaganda of telling Black people to go about effecting change, all peaceful like. And when his usefulness was over, they fucking killed him just to show that a gun is aimed at us at ALL times because we are still their property! Fuck ’em!
I thank you for your comment.
And another great comment I thought I should add.
shelbycourtland’s response:
They can consider Dr. King to have been a figurehead, a Civil Rights leader, a scapegoat or what have you, but his sole purpose was to misdirect Black people’s anger away from fucking shit up but instead focused it on ‘peacefully’ marching down the goddamn street of every pothole filled city in this shithole. You don’t hear the ‘whites’ screaming and jumping up and down about setting aside a day in which to honor Malcolm X. And you won’t! Malcolm X was not going on and on about some ‘peaceful’ this and ‘peaceful’ that. He had some harsh words for those vile ‘white’ shits that have firmly planted their boot on our Black ass and refuse to lift it.
Malcolm X was a revolutionary who believed in violent resistance, he believed in getting things done ‘by any means necessary’. That is why he said, “It’s got to be the ballot or the bullet.” The ballot ain’t worked. And we ALL fucking know what it would take but the revolutionaries of the ’60s are either dead or still locked up and so we just dutifully continue with the useless ass marches and protests with signs dating back 50 years when not a goddamn thing is going to change simply because we are holding up a sign. What has #BLACKLIVESMATTER accomplished? Not a goddamn thing!
Thank you for your comment N.S.
As I have stated before, peruse this content to your heart’s content and then think about the state that Black Amerikkka is in today and you tell me, did ALL of that marching and protesting lead to ANY gains? And if so, how so? Where are they? Black people are more asleep today than than they were in the 60s thanks to dumb ass rap music, pretend beefs among so-called Black celebrities, Youtube madness, Twitter and Facebook mess and the like is endless. There is only moaning and whining coming from Black Amerikkka when Black people do eventually look up and realize how fucked we are that is until another distraction down the pike; another Black Panther Movie or Madea bullshit movie from the likes of Tyler Perry’s faggot ass! That shit, we don’t need. Hell! Damn near half of Black Amerikkka has no idea why today is being ‘celebrated’. Check this shit out!