Welcome to Los Angeles, where riots are “resistance” and poverty is a virtue. We are remembering today the tragic murder of Martin Luther King, a man who lived only long enough to “see the promised land” he was leading us to. We have all heard his speeches, and no matter how many times I do, it always inspires me and strengthens my resolve to live up to his high standards. But just as Michelle Obama says, “It’s hard.” Not hard for me, but for those who have heard his words and drawn from them an entirely different lesson. They believe the promised land Reverend King foretold is found at the end of a path lined with victimization and racialization. Over forty years later they still haven’t recognized that they march in a loop, and the entrenched hopelessness they see is a landscape littered with the patronizing outrage of false prophets and white guilt.

So it comes as no surprise that our political leaders would pull from the hallowed grave the legacy of Reverend King, offering it up as ransom to the thugs that hold their city hostage. Can anyone say for sure that the school drop-outs who line up as gang members and drug dealers/users in Los Angeles know who he is or what his expectation of them was? Sadly, no - but our leaders do, and one is at pains to choose which group is more damaging to the dreams MLK had for America.

LOS ANGELES - A 40-hour period to promote peace, justice and non- violence in Los Angeles will begin at 6:01 p.m. tonight, 40 years to the minute when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

A symbolic 40-hour ban on murder was proposed by activists Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Eddie Jones. An amendment by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon urged residents to use the 40 hours to “promote peace, justice and non- violence and build a dialogue and awareness of the root causes of violence and killing in our communities.”

“The violence in our communities is unceasing,” City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents part of South Los Angeles, said before the council approved the resolution Tuesday.

“Those who may think that this is an empty gesture, I think this will raise the level of discourse not only in our community but hopefully in communities that haven’t been affected as much as we have.”

Joe Hicks, the executive director Los Angeles Human Relations Commission from 1997-2001, was skeptical about the effort’s chances for success.

“It’s just an incredibly silly notion that you can do some kind of symbolic maneuver for 40 hours that the street terrorists that are killing people are going to notice that and say, `Well, I can hold off for a few hours here. Forty-five hours in, I can get busy again,”‘ Hicks told KTLA.

City Councilwoman Janice Hahn told KTLA, “Hopefully it won’t just be symbolic because we know dialoguing, talking, getting the word out, does actually make a difference.”

Hutchinson later told KTLA “we can’t say” if there will be no murders during the moratorium.

Council members said the moratorium is a way to generate dialogue on violence in Los Angeles neighborhoods.

“A moratorium on violence and killing is something we should support 365 days a year and every minute that we live,” Alarcon said.

I wonder if Councilwoman Janice Hahn would like to bet the lives of her loved ones that her approach to ending the “unceasing ” violence of her city will earn peaceful results. Something tells me no. If she and her cohorts had the courage and conviction of the man they claim to commemorate, they’d address the depraved and self-destructive actions of those in the inner-city with the honesty their innocent victims deserve.