a tribute to MLK

So, the secret is out – I’m white. Not vanilla, not cracker, or a combination of the two, like a vanilla wafer; I’m white. In an effort to understand my color, or excuse it, some say I’m pale. Please, keep the sun out of this. Listen, I’m white. Am I clear? No, just white.

Being who I am (Crayola Caucasian), I have a deep appreciation for Martin Luther King Jr. I admire his convictions, his charisma, his tan, his 40-inch vertical, his 10-inch horizontal, his ability to gather first graders on a fuzzy rug posthumously and not have it be weird. Everything.

Above all things, though, I appreciate his selflessness. Standing before those podiums, those prison bars, those riot shields, knowing his dream was more like a coma, as in one that wouldn’t be awoken until death, MLK kept delivering the same unshaken message to fans and dissenters alike: one love.

As King’s youth baseball coach might’ve said if he ever made the team, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘MLK’.” And if there was, he’d be milk.

But King wasn’t white like milk. He was black. But not his heart ... ... his heart was gold. And his eyes were brown, his teeth white, his tongue pink, his grill platinum. And this, all this writing here, is gold.

Knowing this now, I came to treat Jan. 21 not just as any third Monday of January, but as a birthday, a celebration of all things black. Here is a rundown of my tribute:

MLK Day
2 a.m. to 11 a.m. -- Had a dream. I was this dragon poacher – back in dragon times – and had to slay the Big One for this princess, the Cruella DeVille of dragons. But, like, after smoking the creature out from it’s lair, it revealed itself as, like, my mom. Then I fell out of a helicopter. I had a dream.

Noon to 12:10 p.m. – Pulled up to Burger King. Was hungry for a Whopper, but after remembering my tribute to MLK Jr., his respect for cow-loving Gandhi and those brilliant Whopper-stopper ads, I went with a Whopper Jr. What did I do with the $1.50 saving? Well you’ll just have to ask the Diversity Forever Charity.

12:15 p.m. – Felt like vomiting. Whopper withdraw.

1 p.m. – Walked an old white woman across the street. She was in a hurry to cross it. Probably a racist. Or an undercover chicken. By the way, while I’m telling funny-ass jokes only found in grade-school libraries, did my dragon dream drag on?

1:30 p.m. – Questioned some kids for skipping school.

3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. – Watched a marathon of “Martin.” I hate that show. Put on “Bad Boys 2.” Hate that movie. Turned on BET. Impaled my TV.

7 p.m. to 9 p.m. – Went to McDonalds with my buds Terrell, Jose, Yi and Pat, the androgynous one. We sat and discussed ways to eliminate white privilege over Whopper Jrs.

10 p.m. – Had a dream that all men were created equally well endowed, to, you know, save money on pills. The size-reducing ones. I had a dream.