dream snippets and false memories

I have a false memory of riding my motorcycle through Miami in January of 1989, hours before the riots started.

The part about the motorcycle is definitely false because I didn't get my first bike until 1991. The part about "hours before" is probably dramatic exaggeration, though certainly not intentional. The part about me driving through Miami in January of 1989 is true, as is the part about the riots.

My father was living in the Everglades that year and my roommate from the Israeli kibbutz (1987) was living in Orlando but visiting his family in Miami. I remember his father trying to convince me that the 2nd Amendment had nothing to do with citizens' rights.

I can't remember whether or not I visited the Keys that time. The Florida Keys are some of the most beautiful stretches of land and ocean and sky I've ever seen and I've often dreamed of being able to live there.


Anyway, when the riots started, I was safely back in a trailer park in the swamp. Airboats and alligators. And lots and lots of Georgia construction workers. The place was basically a small handful of local Floridians serving a population of south Georgia families living in trailers while the family dads paved over the Everglades. My own dad was the outsider of the community, though he was trying not to be too conspicuous. In his trailer, he was writing never-to-be-published science fiction novels and listening to jazz, while in the other trailers, everyone was ... well, doing very different things.

The other person I would have guessed was an outsider -- but my guess would have been wrong -- was a strikingly beautiful black girl. Teenager. She seemed to fit right in, despite the fact that she was the only black person I ever saw in the Everglades. She had an exaggerated red-neck accent of the south Georgia variety, and seemed to be taking the lead in loudly decrying what "the niggers in Miami" were up to. At the time I assumed she was scared and playing her role well for survival, but looking back on it, I suppose it's possible she really did identify more with the white racist swamp kids than she did with those Big City blacks down in Miami.

I've had a couple of periods of manual labor in my life. And another couple of periods working among the lowest stratum of semi-skilled labor. The hardest part for me was always dealing with chit-chat. One of the things I liked about the Israeli kibbutz was that no one expected you to say anything. Just work hard and you were fine. I was able to find a similar kind of peace among housekeeping women. They all talked to each other constantly, but I was rarely asked my opinion and never expected to chime in. (I remember listening to a room full of middle-aged black women on break, all agreeing with each other that they'd be voting for Reagan because they didn't like the fact that Mondale had picked Geraldine Ferraro as vice-presidential candidate. These women were of a mind on the question of whether or not a woman could handle that level of power.)

Anyway, in the Florida swamps, the chit-chat was about fishing and beer and engines and a long list of other topics about which I was completely ignorant, but as Martin Luther King day neared, conversation all turned to a single topic.

Standard question: What do you think of Martin Luther King?

Standard answer: Oh, he was just another nigger!

Just another 'nigger'? Just ... another ... 'NIGGER'?! Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men of the 20th century, black, white, or etc. (My poor father had to talk me out of starting trouble. He had to live there. I was just passing through.) Did these yokels want to go back to Jim Crow? Did skin color really trump all other considerations?

Well, anyone who's read "dreams can be deceiving" -- my MLK2 blog post from last year -- already knows I don't think nearly so highly of the man anymore. His legacy is mixed, at best.

It makes sense for Lew Rockwell to link to one of King's anti-war speeches today. Might as well use his absurd level of cultural authority to embarrass the neocon hawks. (You do realize that MLK is a neocon hero, right? Maybe it's based only on the most superficial understanding of his best-known sound bites, but how many of his admirers on the Left can claim differently?)

I just can't play along with the celebration. I'm not content to pick and choose what to play up and what to ignore. I still give the guy a thumbs down.

In the 1980s, I was horrified by the resistance to declaring Martin Luther King Junior Day. Now I wish I'd known enough back then to join the resistance.