UNFIT FOR A KING
It is difficult, these days, to chronicle our cultural descent into oblivion, as it picks up speed and sucks more and more elements into its vortex. The financial crisis alone exposed the massive greed, selfishness, and "every-man-for-himself" mentality that is quickly becoming the norm, not the exception, for the general population. We see it daily in the violence that erupts across the country. From a lone gunman in Binghamton, New York, mowing down a group of people studying to become citizens, to the almost-daily murder-suicides that are usually the manifestation of financial and marital distress.
In Boston, a medical student has been charged with the gruesome murder of a young girl who had advertised her "services" on Craig's List, the popular on-line "yard sale". Yes, we're selling everything. This event, which should come as no surprise, given the misogynistic culture in which we are awash, has led to the inevitable argument in favor of legalizing prostitution.
One has to wonder, what, exactly, we are to tell our children. I have told my young boys that a physical relationship with a woman is best saved for your wife, or at the very least, someone you love and intend to love into the future. I tell them that sex is not a sport, or entertainment, it is an intimate act between two adults that will have lasting impact for both. There is, and should not be, anything cavalier about it. What should I tell my daughter? That if educating herself and holding down a job seem too daunting, than it is quite acceptable to simply spread your legs for a living. Enjoy the fulfilling life of a prostitute, and maybe your kids can be prostitutes, too. What a sad, sad place we find ourselves in.
Worse, still, is that the iconic figures in our lives to whom we sometimes look for direction and strength, can find themselves, or at least their legacy, stained by the greasy handprint of greed and narcissism as well. This was the case last week when it was revealed that the descendents of the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. had charged the foundation building a memorial to this great man, a fee for using his name.
The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, a privately-funded group which is building a 28-foot sculpture of King, depicted emerging from a chunk of granite, which will be forever displayed on the National Mall, was charged $800,000.00 by the family. Astounding.
According to Cambridge University historian David Garrow, "I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family...I don't think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington. One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C., that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny." I have to agree, David. What a shame, too, that it had to be this family. Relatives to a man who defined selflessness. Indeed, a man who, arguably, knowingly sacrificed his life to a cause that was as imperative to him as breath itself. How saddened I expect he would be to know of these circumstances. King would have been "absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children", Garrow said. "Mortified" might be a better word.
Financial documents reveal that the foundation paid $761,160.00 in 2007 to Intellectual Properties Management, Inc., an entity run by King's family. Another $71,000.00 "management fee" was paid by the foundation in 2003. In the 1990's, the family sued USA Today and CBS over their use of King's "I Have a Dream" speech without permission. Indeed, the management firm, whose chairman is King's son Dexter, president is cousin Issac Ferris, Jr, and board of directors is filled for life by King's other children, has primarily been involved, almost exclusively, in the pursuit of funds from the use of King's words and images in merchandising. One might thing that the offspring of this larger-than-life man had greater destinies in waiting, but as is so often the case, the easy dollar wins out. The easy road. Increasingly...the road most travelled.
And so it goes. I remember vividly my father's speeches to me about character and dignity. How these things are the foundation of a man, and yet they are ethereal in many ways. You can't put a dollar-value on them. They don't bring you material things. They bring you only the satisfaction of knowing your achievements, even your failures, are pure. They bring you the quiet satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. They are real enough that they allowed men like John McCain, and thousands like him, the strength to say "no" to an early release from a squalid Vietnamese prison. They are the qualities so real that millions of Americans call on them each day when summoning the self-discipline we all need to say "no" sometimes. They are the measure of your standing in the community and your family, and hence, the world. They were integral elements in the make-up of all great men and women. Now, it seems, even character and dignity are "For Sale".
Karl From New Hampshire