If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he�d be all but ignored by the mainstream media, except perhaps for a sound bite or two during Black History Month.

He�d be the target of snide remarks by late night satirists and of cruel caricatures by young Black comedians. Rap artists would establish their reputation for "keeping it real" by attacking Martin in profanity-laced rhyme.

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he and his movement would be held responsible for Black on Black crime, the poor performance of Black children on standardized tests, the heroin and crack epidemics of the past three decades and for our failure to eradicate poverty and injustice.

He�d be denounced in some circles as an Uncle Tom and in others as a dangerous radical. If he ran for public office he�d be tagged a perennial loser. If he refused to run, he�d be dismissed as all talk, no action.

In short, if Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today we�d treat him the way we treat all the other civil rights leaders who managed to survive past the turbulent 1960s. Martin�s reputation�his respect, stature and prestige�would have been whittled away by three decades of ridicule, by endless press scrutiny and relentless criticism from the Left, the Right and the Center.

And we absolutely, positively would not be celebrating his birthday.

This is why I know there�s a God in Heaven: He took Martin away from us before we could totally trash him. School children get to revere his name and ponder his wisdom. The clergy can pay tribute to him without fretting that he�s hogging the limelight. Other leaders don�t have to worry about him draining off donations that otherwise would go to them.

My point is not that martyrdom pays. You already knew martyrdom pays. My point is to think about all of the subtle ways we are manipulated into looking down upon today�s civil rights leaders and, by extension, the cause for which they fight.

We respect leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton but we�re also encouraged to snicker at them behind their backs. We appreciate their role as crusaders-at-large, but we�re also encouraged to think of them as publicity hounds, poking their noses where they don�t belong.

The same almost certainly would have been true of Martin. In fact, that process had already begun at the time of his death. My generation wanted him to be more militant. The older generation wanted him to go a little slower. Political leaders criticized Martin for addressing labor issues and the war in Vietnam that they felt were none of his business.

You could argue that Martin may have been martyred just in the nick of time.

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he�d find himself in an impossible position every time a Black athlete raped a young Black woman, beat up his coach, or got hauled into court for fathering yet another child out of wedlock. If King denounced such behavior he�d be accused of moral hypocrisy. But if he in any way tried to defend or explain or excuse it, he�d sound like a fool.

Mainstream White America would accuse him and his movement of fostering a crippling sense of victimhood in Black America. Mainstream Black America would wonder whether the tactics of the past�boycotts and marches�still work in the 21st century.

If Martin, who was assassinated at age 39, had adopted the sideburns, bush haircut, wide lapels and bell-bottoms of the 1970s, we�d have snickered at his attempt to be hip. If he had insisted on dressing in the thin lapels and gray flannel suits of the �60s, we�d have laughed at his lack of fashion flair.

Most importantly, Martin�s financial records�and the records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that he headed�would have been audited each and every day until we found something. The powers-that-be tend to discredit moral leaders by accusing them of poor bookkeeping.

We may claim to revere Martin today, but if he had lived, we eventually would have kicked him aside in favor of someone "more corporate." We keep looking for leaders who can relate to corporate America and employ its methods, and we keep getting shocked when those leaders also share corporate America�s values.

To tell you the truth, I�m almost glad Martin isn�t alive today to see what we have become. I don�t think he�d like us much. They just don�t make leaders like Martin anymore. Or if they do, we don�t know how to appreciate them.