Strip club apologizes for using Martin Luther King Jr.'s image in flier
By Brian Hamacher and Jeff Burnside,
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10176722-strip-club-apologizes-for-using-martin-luther-king-jrs-image-in-flier
NBCMiami.comMIAMI -- When Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream, this likely wasn't what he meant.
A flier promoting a Miami strip club's "I Have a Dream Bash" featuring MLK holding wads of cash next to scantily clad women has its creator taking plenty of flak.
Miami Beach graphic designer Jeffrey Darnell Paul says he didn't realize the flier, made for The Office strip club at 250 Northeast 183rd Street, would generate the controversy it has.
"I wasn't trying to disrespect anybody ... it wasn't on my mind that it would escalate to something like this," Paul told NBC Miami Monday. "It was just supposed to be a promotional thing, it wasn't about disgracing Martin Luther King, it wasn't about that."
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Paul, who owns and runs South Side Graphix, said he makes fliers for the club every Sunday and that he made the King flier about a week ago for the club's promoters.
"It was proposed to me like a birthday bash for Martin Luther King, I put a flier together without thinking about the effects it would have," said Paul, who is also known as DJ Big Boy. "It's something that I really didn't think about."
Paul said the bash, which was supposed to begin at 8 p.m. Sunday and end at 6 a.m. Monday on MLK Day, was canceled after he realized the flier was inappropriate. He said by then, the flier was making the rounds on the Internet and he was getting lots of negative feedback.
"I got plenty of phone calls, plenty of phone calls ... people calling from Chicago, Ohio, California," Paul said. "If I could've, I would have taken it back ahead of time."
"What was I thinking? Promotion," Paul told NBC Miami.
The strip club's management sought to distance themselves from the promotional effort on Monday, however.
“This is the first time seeing it. This is the owner's first time seeing it," The Office manager Jermaine Robinson said. "So we don’t condone this. This is Martin Luther King. We respect what he did. Today is the day for us to honor him.”
Robinson said the flier is "definitely disrespectful, to be honest with you."
Paul said there's no one to blame but himself.
"I apologize about it, I'm taking full responsibility," he said. "I wish it could have gone down a different way but I'm learning from it and trust me, I'm not going down that route again."
