Coffee with Chuck

Song: The Bigger Picture (2020)

Artist: Lil Baby

Album: The Bigger Picture

Thoughts: Yesterday was MLK Day. I have a lot of thoughts about this day and its purpose. But, I should start by showing great gratitude to Coretta Scott King for lobbying for this day. I am thankful that we have a day to celebrate one of the greatest leaders this world has ever seen. But as I reflect on this day I think about what does it mean to celebrate? Surely, we get the day off from work, and there are the marches and the banquet dinners. But the celebrations end at 11:59PM and then we are back to work the next day. It’s nice that we have the day off from work but Black people do not have the ability to take off the day from anti-Black violence. I then think about how MLK Day and how it has been commodified by neoliberal DEI work. For instance, today at Washington State University the university is celebrating the National Day of Racial Healing, which is an initiative started by the Kellogg’s foundation. So my question is who is healing? Also, are we expected to heal 400-plus years of oppression in just one day?