The Third Monday in January

Nationwide, the third Monday in January marks the observation of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. In my home state of Arkansas, it also honors Confederate General Robert E. Lee. How either man is observed is subject to whom you talk to and your view of the larger world:  one is a hero, and the other a traitor. You know where I stand on this one. One man gets a federal holiday signed into law by a very reluctant Ronald Reagan; the other has monuments all over the South and as far north as Winsted, CT (how do I know? I used to live there – mine was also the only black face for roughly thirty miles or so) and a treasonous spirit, yearning for the South to rise again while people whistle Dixie and don the Stars and Bars.

The third Monday in January is why we need to learn our history.

Instead, some students who should be in school are at home or roaming malls aimlessly with ill regard for why they are released from their studies. Their parents – whom you would think would know better – treat the third Monday in January as a shopping holiday. Yeah, I’ve gotta run to JC Penney today for the sheet sale today. I hope they have five hundred count pima cotton, if not better. In those locales that prefer Lee, Civil War reenactments seem to be the default thing. Obviously, those homogeneous centers of bad behavior wish to retain that small mentality; it seems anti-intellectualism rules the day. Even when it reaches the upper levels of state government, that brand of tomfoolery is shrugged to the side as if it had been rote and routine for the past two hundred years. See Secretary of State Mark Martin. Why has no one in Arkansas called for neither his resignation nor a public apology is beyond me. Maybe this is a byproduct of the Republican Party takeover from November. But, this is my home state – the place where segregation has never really died instead taking on newer, more covert forms. Don’t believe me? Look at where you work. Look at where you shop. Spend a day at your kids’ school.

Stay classy, Arkansas. pic.twitter.com/5LmagUDfvp
— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) January 18, 2015

The third Monday in January is a day of legacy.

In elementary school, we learned to recite the “I Have A Dream” speech, what happened to Rosa Parks when she refused to yield her seat, the Little Rock Nine, and how King sacrificed the final fifteen years of his life to ensure black America would have equal rights and the opportunity to vote through his advocacy of nonviolence. Even in the 1980s – and I adore all of my K-5 teachers – I certainly picked up more at home because my parents put in the time for my brother and me to become conscious, schools were not really doing much because of the MAT-6 standardized testing was upcoming and maybe the material was not as readily available as a double click on the tablet today. From middle school onward, the questions concerning race and a greater in-depth study became landmines to be avoided. While we were living through the Million Man March, the release of modern classics such as Malcolm X, Boyz N Da Hood and 2Pac’s All Eyez On Me, and the Rodney King and OJ Simpson trials, the schools trotted out King as a historical relic instead of correlating current events with the Civil Rights Movement. Honestly, I probably would not have received the same insight, as I was the only black student in many classes from the eighth grade to senior year of high school thanks to my advanced course schedule. But it would have been nice to catch real-time discussion beyond the book.

The third Monday in January means there is still work to do. Excuse my improper grammar, but we ain’t done.

While we have advanced past a lot of the blatant racism out there – Mena residents notwithstanding, as evidenced during Friday night’s high school basketball games in Arkadelphia – there is still work to do. True, we are better as a society and have come a long way as our children are living proof, but many improvements are inconclusive at best. We may witness a parade, an Alpha Phi Alpha – sponsored step show, live in an integrated neighborhood, drive a nice car, get love at Whole Foods, etc. but the events in Sanford, Cleveland, Ferguson, New York, Colorado Springs, and numerous cities speak to the contrary. I’m pretty sure the greatest thing the Civil Rights Movement gave us was not the opportunity to have sex with white women and live to tell about it.

Well, what how about the bought-and-paid for politicians of both parties, with the help of some law enforcement officers and Fox News criminalize and magnify any misdeed a black person makes as genetic attribution? (For those who have never heard the saying, it means blaming the sum of a group for the actions of one person. You’ll see this again during Black History Month via Facebook and within AD&AD.)No matter how much education is obtained, what titles are added to our names, how assimiliated we feel we have become, there are still people who view us as the help or worse, the N-word. We still face challenges out there (ex. education inequality, medical discrimination, an ever widening economic chasm) that remind us that we ain’t done.

The third Monday in January is one to reflect, yet strive toward achieving King’s dream.

Twenty years ago, the Million Man was a resounding success in part of how much of an impact the black dollar has on the American economy. Civil rights is not a finished issue – ask any gay person – but America treats it as such, claiming the movement as the solution to three hundred years of second-class citizenship and crass racism. Today, I’m sure you will find the real King marching toward justice for Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin. The mass-marketed King – the one that gets pushed upon us by the media – is a feel-good fairy tale designed to lessen the man’s impact and make certain Americans feel solace in their treatment and insincere forgiveness. For all of his flaws, which the Lee crowd will gladly promote his serial affairs (hey, if your life is threatened daily, why not try some things? I’m not condoning adultery, but I do understand in that case), the real King took his lumps and publicly suffered for 22 million people to have a better quality of life.

What is the third Monday in January to you?