The Boondocks on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
January 19th, 2005
I caught an episode of the Boondocks the night before Martin Luther King day. Typically, the show is rather hit or miss. It's opinions, controversies, and revelations are almost quaint at times when compared with the hardcore satire of series like the Simpsons or South Park. But it is in it's infancy. Every once in a while, it does shine through like a glorious beacon of discontent.
"Return of the King " was one of the best episodes to date. Though seeing Dr. King portrayed as on old doddering fool brought some heavy discomfort and quite a bit of anger to my jaded heart, there were shining moments when he expressed a muddled and confused melancholic disappointment in the state of affairs of America today.
His speech near the end about the haplessness and hopelessness of this generation and his exhaustion and dissapointment with it all is only made unconfortable by the gratuitous use of the word "nigger". Sadly, he offers no solutions or reason, but just vents frustration and says he's moving to Canada.
I submit that the phenomenon goes far beyond "urban" culture. I'll admit I'm young and my experience is limited by my time on this planet, but my generation appears to pale in comparison to most of the latter half century.
Once, the young had a mission. Sure, they were always careless and playful, full of misdirected anger and passion, but beatniks looked inward for persepective and soul, feminists and panthers fought for equality, even hippies preached peace and love while they screwed and got high. Though their methods may have been questionable, they had a purpose.
Today, those emotions have no real outlet or place in society. It seems that idealism in any form, unless sanctioned by the radical religious right, has been squashed. Feelings are only for psychopaths and terrorists. Progressive is just a synonym for the now demonized "liberal". Those who have been hurt and seek justice or are weary are "bitter". Emotional investment or good old "love and caring" is now mostly just an obsessive illness of which jealousy and paranoia are symptoms.
My uncharacteristically optomistic theory of the day is that today's children are not inherently bad or shallow. Rather, the next fix, whether it be sexual, narcotic, primal, or material, it is all they care about because it is all they are allowed to care about.
My other theory involves geese and butter, but the gist is "Comfort breeds mediocrity." This was a theory I used as a war-cry in highschool. It is also more along the lines of the Boondocks message, being, "Only in hard times did the black community come together for a common purpose." It's more easily explainable, so ignore the rest of the post if you don't get it.
Yay for the Boondocks and it's memorable tribute to Dr. King.
