I hadn’t planned on doing much this Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I hadn’t done much all winter break and by the evening of the 19th I was convinced that the laws of momentum would keep me firmly planted on my couch.
Then my roommate came home ranting about how happy hour at Brothers had been taken over by what he thought was an inappropriate Martin Luther King Day celebration. With that, I was inspired to leave the couch, and I set off to see for myself.
“This argument might have convinced me that they were not being deliberately offensive had they not turned their celebration into a theme party, which the drunkest one aptly described as ‘like a pimp and hoe party.’ “ |
As I entered the tavern, the group my roommate had described was gathered around a table on the left. They were all white and each wore at least one item of clothing that identified them as part of the celebration.
Most wore either a sports jersey or an oversized T-shirt with their jeans well below the waist. The accompanying headdress was either a bandanna or baseball cap that pointed any direction but forward or back. A few wore gaudy and oversized plastic jewelry that was, in some cases, homemade. The outfits alone wouldn’t have meant much had they not been in such a large group and had I not recognized some of them, and therefore known their usual style.
As I took in the scene, a man behind the bar grabbed a microphone and shouted “Thanks for coming to get f—ed up with us on Martin Luther King Day!”
The 20 or so patrons seemed to ignore the announcement. As I turned to approach the small gathering of celebrants, the members of NWA barked, “F–k the po’ leese, F–k the po’ leese, F–k ’em,” from a speaker behind me.
I took a seat next to a lanky fellow with amplified facial features who sat on the fringe of the group. A homemade medallion that spelled his name,”Jason,” in giant letters dangled from his neck on a string of cheap Mardi gras beads and swung freely when he leaned in to speak to me. Behind the medallion, his shirt displayed a red circle with a red line slashing diagonally across it and the word “crackers” written inside it in black. His term for the look he and his friends had achieved was “thuggish.”
Beyond that, Jason had trouble articulating the symbolic importance of his clothing or the point of the celebration. His most coherent explanation was, “We hoped people would at least look at us and laugh.” I knew what he meant. A white man doing black guy impersonations is still automatically humorous to many Americans. It’s an old routine that in my grandparents’ time was done in blackface.
As Jason struggled, the master of ceremonies, who had addressed the crowd earlier, came out from behind the bar and joined our conversation. He was a talker with a salesman’s smile and was obviously trying to swing my impression of the scene to his favor. He turned out to be an employee of Brothers. When I asked him if the owner knew about the celebration, he said, “Probably not.”
He tried to excuse himself and his friends by admitting they hadn’t thought much about what they were doing and were very drunk.
Sensing my skepticism, he offered some of his friends as sacrifice. He explained the day’s celebration had been the brainchild of two men from Janesville, a town near Chicago that he described as “pretty racist.” Unfortunately for him, his effort at scapegoating was also an admission that his Martin Luther King Jr. Day festivities were in fact conceived in a racist mind. After pointing that out, I complimented the master of ceremonies on his effort at public relations and ended our conversation.
On my left, a man with a car license plate attached to a chain around his neck was speaking in a less guarded manner. He seemed the drunkest of the group. He argued Martin Luther King Jr. Day was, “Just another reason to drink, like St. Patrick’s Day!”
Furthermore, “What’s wrong with wearin’ some bling and drinking 40s all day to celebrate Martin Luther King Day?”
Ignorant as it was, this argument might have convinced me they were not being deliberately offensive had they not turned their celebration into a themed party, which the drunkest one aptly described as “like a pimp and hoe party.”
I left Brothers unsure as to what they had been thinking going out dressed like that on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Maybe they had truly meant it to be a mockery of the holiday, but hadn’t counted on seeing any black people. Maybe they had been misled by the boys from Janesville who were the real racist masterminds. There was a chance it was just as the drunkest one said: To them, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is the black equivalent of St. Patrick’s and in that spirit they decided to emulate some aspects of the culture.
In that case, what did it say for these men that their understanding of blackness was thuggishness and drunkenness? Furthermore, what did it say for their parents, their hometowns, the high schools and the university that some of them still attend? What did it say about America in 2004 that an Amos and Andy routine could still get laughs?
Before going home, I stopped into the Grand Illusion, a bar just up the street from Brothers. I asked the bartender what the G.I. was doing to mark the holiday. “Nothing,” she said with a friendly but slightly questioning smile. It made perfect sense. I ordered a beer and didn’t bother her about it.