KING-OBAMA

OBAMA AND KING'S CONCURRENCE: CONJUNCTION or DISJUNCTION? BY Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman 01/15/13 On Monday, January 21, 2013, Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, will be publicly inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States of America, presently the richest and most hetero-potent nation on earth. That same day, the national holiday commemorating the birth, life, death, and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another black man, will also be observed all across this same land. Such a first-of-its-kind, historical concurrence, to say the least, is iconic in both American and world history. So much so, it might be said to rival, if not to supersede, the irony richly elucidated within the Biblical account of Joseph,Pharaoh, and Jacob in Genesis 37-49, when a slave became Prime Minister. Joseph, youngest son of Jacob was given a coat of many colors, which excited his eleven brothers' jealousy and envy. But, especially galling to them was his recurrent meglomaniacal dreams of himself that he shared with them in metaphors. So, to be rid of him and “to see what would become of his dream,” they sold him to some traveling Ishmeelites as a slave. They, then, ripped and dipped his multicolored robe in animal blood simulating an attack, and lied to Jacob, their father, that he was dead. Joseph, this former slave and prisoner in Egypt, not only rose to save Egypt from starvation through its “seven lean years,” but he also rescued his own Hebrew people who had sold him into slavery in Egypt. No metaphor should be overworked, however. After all, scientists tell us that life is never isotropic, or equal in all directions. On the contrary, life is anisotropic, unequal and asymmetric: cosmologically, biologically, philosophically, historically, and theologically. Translation: life bounces more like a spiral football--unpredictably--than like a spherical baseball, basketball or golf ball, all of which bounce true. Yet, as humans involuntarily and autonomically compare and contrast all things, instinctively and by nature, a few personal asseveration’s may be hazarded. First, but for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and sacrifices, there would be no African American President of the United States to inaugurate in 2013 nor in any prior inaugural year. Second, no one appreciates this first point more than President Barack Hussein Obama, himself, being a keen student of history, law, and political philosophy. He continually expresses his gratitude to God, to his wife, Michelle, and especially to his historical and biological forebears, for the opportunities that facilitated all the fruits he now enjoys. He did so in his two autobiographies: Dreams of My Father and in its sequel, The Audacity of Hope! He will do so again. Conjunction can be destiny or chance, as energy can be either a dot or a wave; likewise, disjunction. No man can know the future, when the present itself is but an ephemera, perceptible only as sensation! That is why we study history it is all that one can know. History seeds, waters, oxidizes, and fertilizes. That is why Dr. King's “Dream” was “deeply rooted in the American dream,” and its source documents. Those documents are “The Declaration of Independence,” The U.S. Constitution as amended, and the Emancipation Proclamation, whose issuance 150 years ago was celebrated on January 1. These documents conjoined to create the ideal of America. But, it took the slave labor of the black man and the black woman from 1789, the year of the country's founding, until 1865, the year of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, to “hew this stone of freedom” from the resplendent marvel of that ideal. The national disjunction that occurred over the status of these black denizens who obtained their freedom, by any means necessary, spawned the Underground Railroad, Kansas-Missouri Border War, John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry, and inevitably, Civil War-- “Freedom War”-- itself. Certainly, President Obama's election and reelection represent undeniable political progress, which Dr. King would, of course, salute. But, Dr. King's life was cut down when he, like Jesus Christ, troubled the economic waters of America. Despite partial and inspirational political progress, “it's the economy, stupid” as former President Bill Clinton's campaign slogan touted it. There, in the economic realm, the unfinished business of the America ideal, as expressed and as sought by our martyred Dr. King, can conjoin with, and can fructify in and beyond the second term of our black President, Barack Obama. #30