I just about did a double take when I thought I saw the image of
Martin Luther King Jr. on a billboard. The civil rights leader was
standing across from the Washington Monument, but instead of crowds,
there was empty space. "Before you inspire, before you can touch,
you must first connect," read the script below the image of King.
It was an advertisement for Alcatel, a French company that describes
itself as a leader in telecommunications.
Whatever they are, I am appalled, even as I learned that King's
heirs were paid well so that Alcatel could use King's image. I suppose
I should be grateful. After all, Alcatel could be selling something
far more concrete than telecommunications awareness. What if they
were selling food, athletic shoes or prescription drugs? Then we'd
have to wonder how consistent those sales were with King's dream.
Communications is fuzzy and nebulous enough to be embraced, no
matter what its
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Would Martin Luther King
have embraced Alcatel's
corporate policies?
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content. So if I am to count my blessings in this dream-selling context,
I suppose I have a few to count. Indeed, one might say that King's
appearance in the commercial world is the highest compliment that
our capitalist society can offer anyone.
Alcatel has recognized the power of the King image, the fact that
his rhetoric and imagery sell. They have made it clear that King
has enough posthumous appeal to make his image worth something,
and they've recognized our civil rights leader in the only way they
know how, in the marketplace. By paying his heirs, they've also
put a value on King's dream, a value that has not been revealed
because no one wants to say what a dream like King's costs. It seems
as if we have moved from "I Have A Dream," to "Money, Money, Money,
Money."
It would be useful for the King heirs to remind themselves that
King said, "If you will respect my dollars, then you must respect
my person." Through Operation Breadbasket, he led boycotts against
companies that did not fully include African-Americans in their
governance and operations. If he were alive today, would King embrace
Alcatel or reject its corporate policies?
Some will see the King commercial debut as evidence that we have
come a long way, baby. I see it as a reminder that we still have
a long way to go. After all, African-Americans remain relatively
absent from corporate executive suites. We are a tiny fraction of
those who pull down six-figure earnings. We don't shatter glass
ceilings, but batter our heads on concrete ones. And while our images
have commercial value, our work efforts are often undervalued. You
can't turn on a television without hearing the Motown sound used
to sell anything from automobiles to fast food. You can't listen
to a radio without hearing a cadence that sounds African-American,
whether it is real or a matter of imitation.
Network television anchors have adopted ebonics as a second language,
"dissing" and "chilling" with the worst of them. African-American
life has been woven into our nation's popular culture, though African-American
lives are often pushed to the periphery. Now they've got King, too.
They've taken a classic speech and turned it into a commercial moment,
taken a moment in history and attempted to turn it into sales. To
be sure, they paid for it, and so they should not necessarily be
condemned. The fact that King was for sale, though, ought to be
the cause of condemnation. A moment of conscience has been turned
into a commercial construct.
The dream that has motivated so many has been turned into something
that can be priced, auctioned and sold. I wouldn't mind the dream
being sold if the dream had been attained. But even as we are being
barraged with the Alcatel commercial, we are also being told that
a Michigan court will not accept admission standards at the University
of Michigan Law School when race is included as an admission factor.
(Alumni, athlete or any other status is OK.) Race can't matter,
this court says, because it is unfair.
The real unfairness, of course, is that race has mattered for so
long that the court cannot understand that they cannot simply assert
a level playing field. That's not all. Even as we are being barraged
with a "dream" commercial, we face a nightmare tax cut that will
exclude 56 percent of all African-Americans and Latinos from its
reach.
King's heirs can sell his image, but they cannot cash out the dream
because, by now, the dream no longer belongs to them. It is a dream
that many share, and that many aspire to. It is a dream that transcends
the trite commercialism of an Alcatel ad, a dream that the heirs
can't put a dollar figure on. They can sell King's image, but they
can't sell his spirit. Indeed, perhaps the King they sold will remind
us to search for the dreamer in his works and in his words.
Julianne Malveaux is a Washington-based economist, columnist
and commentator, who can be reached at jmaxoffice@aol.com.
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