Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King

Happy Healthy Eating
Happy Healthy Eating

Another rant…. from Chef Marian!

Tomorrow we are celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King.

I received something to my ‘in box’ today that really hit me the wrong way. It was like: “Just as we celebrate MLK (no credit for the Dr. part), we honor the time tested tradition of Sweet Potato Pie. And then they give the recipe.

Really? REALLY? How racist is that? He’s black so he must have eaten Sweet Potato Pie? How about fried chicken and chitlin’s? So totally inappropriate and not what Monday is about.

I will tell you that as a child of the 60’s, we were sort of in a quandary. On one hand we had Dr. Martin Luther King. But we also had Militant groups as well. And as a privileged white girl growing up in New York, I honestly had no idea about people being racist outside of a few jokes you would hear now and again.

I didn’t understand the unfairness factor, the deep humiliation, the sadness for their history of being slaves. I had no idea what it took both financially and emotionally for a black man in those days to become educated.

The only thing I got from Dr. Martin Luther King’s death was that it was becoming a more and more violent world. First Kennedy, then King. It just seemed to me that people in the spotlight were to be ‘taken down’.

In Australia, they call it ‘tall poppies’. The tall poppies that stand out and grow higher than the others get cut down by the gardner.

As a human being, I’ve always stood up for the underdog, and seeing myself as not quit an underdog, always stood up for myself.

In celebrating Martin Luther King Day, that’s what I am celebrating: the right to stand up for yourself. When we look around America these days and see how many educated, intelligent, financially secure people there are that, by the the way, just happen to be black, it is very clear how much impact Dr. Martin Luther King has had (in retrospect) on America.

And the world watches what America does. As someone who is well traveled, it always amazes me how different the world perspective is, than our own. But one more thing I do remember from my travels as far as New Zealand and Australia: The saying in that neck of the woods is: ‘When America sneezes, Australia gets a cold’. We have tremendous impact on other countries.

While the world is watching our political process, I do hope they see what is currently going on in America not as people in power and politics spreading hatred and fear, but instead showing their right to speak. In the end, I do believe America will go with love, not fear and hate …. just like Dr. Martin Luther King did. He never could have accomplished all he did, coming from fear or hate.

Now that’s worth thinking about. Worth stopping a moment to reflect. Do you come from love? Or fear and hate?

Healthy Happy Eating,

Chef Marian