So I was watching the Boondocks tv show last night (which i generally think has a few moments but often crosses the line and isn't as funny as the comic strip (which is hilarious and generally on-point) Had their Martin Luther King Jr episode. It was very interesting-they did a counterfactual reality where King wasn't killed on the balcony but went into a 30 yr coman, awaking around 2000 to our present world. After being initially celebrated, he's villified and ostracized after suggesting we "love our enemies" and "turn the other cheek" after 9/11. Eventually (with the help of Huey Freeman) he tries to start a new left party. But upon discovering that the new "party" is really nothing but a "party" in the clubbing sense of the word (complete with scantily clad women, fighting, etc) he delivers a rousing speech about the state of black America.

At first I thought the show went way over the line when King calls the people in his audience (I'm paraphrasing bc I can't remember all the adjectives) "Trifling, good for nothing n*****s." The show has been criticized for its frequent use of the n-word (though I don't think it uses it more than people do in real conversations, but of course the Cartoon Network is a different venue than being on the block), King does go on to say that he hates that word and that its the ugliest word in the English language, but that he was forced to use it bc it was the only way to describe what he saw. After calling out everything from BET to the movie Soul Plane (the speech is time-elapsed so you don't actually hear all he has to say), he moves to Canada, but his words have a tremendous effect on the black community in America, eventually bringing about "the revolution." The show ends with a newspaper headline from the year 2020 saying that King has died in British Columbia, then pans out to show that the main headline on that paper was Oprah Wiinfrey being elected president. I'm still not quite sure what to think of the episode (or what the King family and those who knew him might think) but I do feel that Aaron McGruder, though perhaps still crossing the line several times, actually did it in a way that was somewhat serious and respectful of King's legacy and beliefs (not that I think King would have actually delivered this speech, at least not the way it was presented, but the points were valid). I think they rerun episodes of the Boondocks sometime(s) this week in case you missed it. Watch it and see what you think.

Day 6 of my "who reads this" poll(6 responses so far-that's like one per day!)-please follow instructions below-i'd appreciate it ever so much:

I'm curious who actually reads this.

If you are reading this, please leave me a note to let me know you were here. You can include your name or not-whichever you prefer (though it would be cool to know who you are). This applies to both people i do and do not know. thanks.

(ps-if you don't want to leave note here, just send me an email if you know my email address)