I wrote this eloquent shit on racism, segregation, and Martin Luther King. Unfortunately, my computer crashed and I lost it all. Or my dog ate it. One of those.

Anyway, since that great piece of knowledge and love has disappeared for all eternity, I find that I must write about something. Well, I don’t really have to write about anything. But I felt the need to drive by and yell obscenities outside the car window before I entered back deep within my cave. Or my womb. Whichever.

So, I searched and thought on it long and hard for five or 10 minutes. And I came up with nothing. I mean it is the day of the Iowa caucus. And it still is MLK day. So, I should have no shortage of topics to write about. But I hate serious crap. I hate intellectual dialogue. I rejoice in stupidity. And I praise the holy house of nothing. And that’s why I got nothing. That’s right. I got nothing. And that’s a good thing.

Nothing is great to write about. It’s quick, cheap and easy, like Christina. Well, Christina might not be so cheap. She’s worth some dough. And she probably costs a fortune to get with. And I ain’t got a fortune. I got nothing. And that’s where I’m coming from. So, let’s talk about nothing.

I like nothing. Nothing is simple. Nothing doesn’t bother you, unless you really want something. Then nothing can be a son-of-a-bitch. But most of the time nothing don’t go around bothering nobody. Nothing don’t give a damn about you. Nothing is cool. Nothing doesn’t go around disappointing people. If you aim for nothing, you’ll get nothing. And that don’t hurt as much as looking for something and getting nothing. I mean, we should teach our children to aim for nothing. And then, maybe, they’ll have better self-esteem, a better personal view of themselves. You can’t fail if you don’t try. Right? Right?

Hold it. Wait. Eubonics time: I finto go gets me nothing. Aight.

Some say who you are is what you do. If you do nothing, you are nothing. If you believe in nothing, and don’t fight for anything, and live to fight for nothing, then, you are nothing. Jesse says to be something. Like Yoda and the force. Be somebody. But what’s the big deal in being something.

You get that government name and that government number of a social security designation, and what does that get you? Free aid that the government and its people resent you for partaking of; free services that the government promises but can’t truly provide and deliver on; free education that leaves you just as ignorant when you graduate as you were the day after you were born. Free access to credit and grants and loans that will leave you indebted until the day that you die.

Who needs a name and number designation. What is it worth? To get a job, a car, a house, cloths, food, bank accounts, the very daily standard of living. And once you take that name/number designation, where does that leave you. In death, what do you possess? What do you own?

The white church, I’m sorry to say. Its leadership has greatly disappointed me. Let me hasten to say there are some outstanding exceptions. As one whose Christian roots go back through three generations of ministers — my father, grandfather and great-grandfather — I will remain true to the church as long as I live. But the laxity of the white church collectively has caused me to weep tears of love. There cannot be deep disappointment without deep love. Time and again in my travels, as I have seen the outward beauty of white churches, I have had to ask myself, “What kind of people worship there? Who is their God? Is their God the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and is their Savior the Savior who hung on the cross at Golgotha? Where were their voices when a black race took upon itself the cross of protest against man’s injustice to man? Where were their voices when defiance and hatred were called for by white men who sat in these very churches?”

As the Negro struggles against grave injustice, most white churchmen offer pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. As you say, they claim that the gospel of Christ should have no concern with social issues. Yet white churchgoers, who insist that they are Christians, practice segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they do in movie-houses. Too much of the white church is timid and ineffectual, and some of it is shrill in its defense of bigotry and prejudice. In most communities, the spirit of status quo is endorsed by the churches.

…There are many signs that the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. Unless the early sacrificial spirit is recaptured, I am very much afraid that today’s Christian church will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and we will see the Christian church dismissed as a social club with no meaning or effectiveness for our time, as a form without substance, as salt without savor. The real tragedy, though, is not Martin Luther King’s disillusionment with the church — for I am sustained by its spiritual blessings as a minister of the gospel with a lifelong commitment: The tragedy is that in my travels, I meet young people of all races whose disenchantment with the church has soured into outright disgust.

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