2003-04-07|3:36 p.m.
A prime mover of the Montgomery bus boycott, a keynote speaker at the March on Washington, and the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. maintains a legacy in our minds as the dominant force in the civil rights movement. Freeways, roads, buildings, schools, artwork, and even a whole national holiday memorialize his efforts to bring about equality, understanding, and peace through non-violent measures.
Just about everyone (with exception to absolutely racist idiots like David Duke) accepts/accepted King as a brilliant and valuable figure. People still look fondly upon the words, �I have a dream..� Even moving beyond partisan lines, people like Rush Limbaugh voted for the MLK jr. holiday. Hell, the day was established in Reagan�s presidential term.
But, something is stagnant. If we all deeply admire a man who advocated racial equality, the eradication of poverty, peace (he was staunchly against the war in Vietnam), and civil rights, why does it seem like nothing has changed since he was murdered in 1968? It�s over thirty years later, and blacks and Mexicans are nearly as poor as they were back then:
We see the token Hispanic or black guy who managed to �make it� that works along side us in our �white� job. This man (or even woman!) is all the evidence we need to proclaim modern equality. Hell, if Juan can do it, so can you! King�s efforts then become historically relevant only for the 1960s. Everything is all better now. �Thank you, King, for paving the way for this guy to work along side me.� Small samples of stories of triumph are mistaken as a completed task. Never mind that if you have a name like Aisha or Jamul or any other black sounding name, you are significantly less likely to get hired, even now. The broader picture is too much to accept, or change.
Over 40 million (I�m going to repeat this over and over until it changes) people, especially affecting women and minorities, in the United States of America are without healthcare.
The only time we start getting concerned as a nation about racism and inequality is when we find out some college in Michigan is using a point system that slightly favors applicants of minority groups, when it seems white kids are being discriminated against. Never mind the public school system that exists before college. Schools in areas like East St. Louis, Harlem, the Bronx, Chicago, Jersey City, and San Antonio, are material for entertaining fictional movies like Dangerous Minds; not a reality that needs desperately to be changed.
It is not unusual for these schools to be housed in old, dilapidated buildings and to be staffed by a higher proportion of teachers who are new or lack proper credentials. These schools are also located in high-crime areas, and often lack the most basic needs. Rooms with no heat, few supplies or texts, labs with no equipment or running water, sewer backups, fumes, and overwhelming fiscal shortages combine to create an appalling, yet brutally honest depiction of the environment in which some children attend.
How often, besides in Hollywood movies where a beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer is patient enough to help them, do we see the public rise up in concern for the children in these schools? But we were outraged at the story about some middle-class girl who scored big on her SATs that might not get into the University of Michigan because she is white. You see, we like Martin Luther King Jr., we support blacks, Hispanics, women and the poor in their quest for equality, but WE�RE NOT going to pay for it! We can be concerned about the inequalities of people in the US all day long. But if we aren�t willing to change the way public schools are funded (through an area�s property tax, which means poor areas get only the funding that the property tax pulls in) and solve problems as a community, then nothing is going to change.
And if it isn�t already obvious, we care nothing about peace. A pre-emptive strike is STILL the first blow, even if we say it�s for our own protection. On January 15th, Martin Luther King Jr.�s Holiday, war plans were being drawn up as inspectors were still looking for WMD, which were never found. I wonder if King were still alive if he�d probably be labeled anti-American if he said something like this, �Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction�The chain of evil-hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars-must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the abyss of annihilation," as he said in 1963.
Particularly relevant to today, his words from the Birmingham Jail:
�I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice: who constantly says: �I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action�; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.�
So, the future is not a call to glorify a man who fought valiantly for justice and compassion, rather a call upon us to do as he did, I believe. His legacy should not simply be immortalized upon the schools of our children and the roads that we drive upon, but in our actions and the thoughts that drive our actions. There is much work to be done.