Women are in trouble–in this men’s world. Women of color are in much more bigger and worse trouble. As the first person of color, first woman elected to the Kentucky State Senate and first woman to come forward and acknowledge she had romantic affairs America Civil Rights legend, Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Georgia Davis Powers has crossed a double line of culture.
That at 90, Ms. Powers is still being labelled as lying among some preachers and many black persons around the world, especially, by her own black community in the United States should bring us back to the table for conversations on the TRUE meanings of what we are do-ing.
First, she is a woman–and that makes her not competent for the truth, even at her age. Otherwise, why would someone assume or ever come to imagine that a distinguished person of her pedigree would come forward to say that she had an affair when she never had one?
Second, she is black. Had Ms. Powers stepped forward as a white woman, she might have been more qualified in the eyes of her accusers, because white is more transparent, like when the white man was transparent in buying slaves from continent. They must have truthfully and ruefully said: “hey, slaves, the Lord of Host has given you over to us for chattels. Don’t worry, the Lord is good.”
Thirdly: Dr. Martin Luther King is Jesus Christ–of the American black (Christian) religion. It is as though a highly exalted throne of infallibility had been erected (in the minds of black people) that King can do no wrong. True, Dr. King King left significant legacies behind for us all; indeed, he had been to “the top of the mountain.” However, most of the defenders of King’s morality are merely using their rhetoric to justify their own positions on where a woman must be, the line the female must not, ever, cross; or they being hyper hypocrisy. How about if King would have accepted her as telling the truth? Why do we want to on the foreclose the discourse before it ever takes off? We keep claiming we are under the table, but we continually put own under the carpet of our minds. Ms. Davis ought to be given credit for stepping forward and saving Dr. King. She gives us invaluable pieces of information which ought to add to the humanity of a legend, not depreciate it. So, to even deprecate her without leaving her a chance for believability smirks of cultural fundamentalism.
But deprecating this grandmother and mother also has its useable purpose: it shows we have not really grown up to that place where we see reason from the position of the weak, the ones who do not agree with us, and ultimately, it is a demonstration of our own refusal to climb up “the mountain-top” of responsibility. Moreover, it casts serious shadows over our moral claims. Is that not also one of the reasons our families are falling apart? Is that not why our culture is non-exist, and we accept anything that comes our way, pretending to be Africans, from the motherland we had seen on large, screaming I-phones?
I find the latter subject of fundamentalism very interesting because as Christians, when that word comes out the only image we tend to connect with is that of Islamic terrorist. What dulls our senses from seeing our own typed of cultural terrorism is just what I do not seem to fathom. Like when we keep saying the white man is to blame for our situation. No, you need to see the gross irresponsibility, especially among young men of color, who have taken up the destiny of running amok making babies. And ladies, use your brains, please, if condoms has failed us, let us try abstinence (or continue to manufacture unfathered, prison-bound children). By the way because that is unassailable anywhere, and black irresponsibility ought to get a Nobel prize for population over-control!
Finally, and let us return to the thoughtless subject of a Senator Powers lying about an affair with Dr. Martin Luther King. For those who do not see any iota of truth or possibility of it in her claim, let us assume a change of role for both characters. Let us for once imagine it was Dr. King who claimed he had an affair with the lady and she denied, who would we believe? Are we still (not) going to jump on the wagon with the powerful man of God? Aren’t we going to punish the lady with cheating, providing her sophisticated labels before we lynch her emotions, her integrity, and her humanity? Does she stand any chances whatsoever for justification in this culture of socio-political fundamentalism?
