I Have a Dream...About Chicken and Waffles?

So there I am, sitting in my cubicle, minding my own business, listening to the local NPR station while working, and then I hear about UC-I's special MLK Day celebration... I'm not generally the type to get too loud at the office, but I couldn't help the raucous laughter or outrage coming from my half of the cubicle, both generated from the same basic question: What's wrong with serving chicken and waffles for MLK Jr. Day?

When I was listening to the newscaster, he said that he didn't understand what was wrong with serving chicken and waffles for MLK Day; after all, chicken and waffles were served at popular Black clubs during the Harlem Renaissance, and tons of Black people like chicken and waffles...heck, White people like them, too! Everyone likes chicken and waffles! What's the problem?

For one, neither chicken nor waffles have any particular cultural relevance to Black history or the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps if there had been a Black Jesus-level round-table of Civil Rights forces like Malcolm X, Dr. King, and others, all sitting around eating chicken and waffles, then there'd be some grounding in this kind of insanity. But there wasn't.

The commentator pointed out that chicken and waffles were popular at a restaurant that gained a lot of popularity during the Harlem Renaissance...so what? Since something is popular in the Black community, it's alright to bring it up during MLK Day? Why stop at fried chicken and waffles? Let's replace the juice dispenser with Kool-Aid dispensers, give people gold chains at the cash registers, and teach 'em how to dougie on the way to the lunch table. Instead of dealing with something POPULAR in Black culture, how about we deal with something RELEVANT to Black culture if we have to take those steps...but this is all besides the point.

I was rather unhappy that I couldn't call in and speak my mind...and then a caller who had moved to the States from Canada went and said exactly what I was thinking: Since when is MLK Day a Black holiday, anyway?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not about Black people. And it's certainly not about chicken (or waffles). It's about celebrating the dream of a man who believed that one day our society could learn to look past trivialities, that one day we could appreciate people for the decisions they make and the quality of life they strive for, not an irrelevant attribute that a person is born with. Today we still fight against the nightmare biases of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and religious intolerance, amongst many other things. But every day, every time we try to understand another culture, try to embrace a person outside our experience, we get a little closer to King's dream.

So yeah, I'm still a bit offended at the chicken and waffle offering. But I appreciate the spirit of cultural understanding that was attempted to be given at UC-I. A chicken bone or a waffle is a damned poor substitute for an olive branch, but it was a nice try.