People don't go around saying "Happy Martin Luther King Day" to each other, right? It's not that kind of a holiday. More, though, should do what John Pavlovitz did on his blog this morning, a powerful and compelling meditation on how Martin Luther King's message resonates in him today. He wishes he'd have written it soon but it's taken him this long to figure out there are words to say what he knows he had to say. For much of his life, he explained, he had imagined he was fighting the good fight of equality because he believed in it philosophically, because intellectually he agreed with it. "I’d frequently recited your words and loudly amen-ed your sermons and easily claimed affinity in your declarations of the worth of every human being. I’d have said that I was trying to live as a man after your own courageous heart-- but at best I was really play-acting.
Looking back at the path of journey, for far too many of those years I’d actually been one of the white moderates you castigated from a cell in a Birmingham jail: people imagining themselves morally evolved but still afflicted with the latent illness of privilege that resists the messiness of justice-- especially when it rattles your blind prejudices and brings turbulence to your places of comfort. As often as I raised my voice to uplift the oppressed, I scolded them when they spoke in ways I deemed too loud, too aggressive, too angry.In the wake of passionate protests and falling monuments and desperate pleas for equality that spilled over into violence, I too often took a posture of correction, defending some “right way” of protesting, that only reflected the fact that the law and the system never required me to scream to be heard or fight to be considered. I’ve never known that kind of desperation and often mischaracterized it as recklessness, unintentionally quieting the turbulence necessary for justice to come.Dr. King, I’ve always known you deserved my respect, but it’s only recently that I realized that I owe you an apology.I’m sorry for the times I stayed silence in the presence of my white friends while they perpetuated caricatures of people of color: when they made the lazy joke or wielded the most dehumanizing stereotypes-- and for the times I myself generated the ignorant laughter of my peers, never considering the collateral damage of making human beings into punchlines.I’m sorry that I assumed myself progressive, while never talking ownership of my privilege or facing my culpability in the systemic racism of this nation; the times I wanted to see myself as one of the good guys, yet wasn’t able or willing to see or confront the ways I have profited from my whiteness since birth.I’m sorry that I was such a lousy student of History; never stopping to realize that it had largely been written by people who needed to be the heroes even as they perpetuated the villainy.I’m sorry that I so often spoke in the cause of vulnerable and marginalized people, instead of actually first listening to them-- because the former was much easier and the latter more potentially uncomfortable.I’m sorry that I wanted to proudly wear the bleeding heart badge of being for equality, but didn’t want to enter the jagged, bloody trenches of the white anti-racist; that I wasn’t willing to get my hands dirty and draw the bruises and broken bones that come when bigotry is confronted by its direct counterpoint.I’m sorry that as a Christian minister, I once participated in a conservative Church that has been an agent of inequity and harborer of white supremacy since its inception-- and later in a progressive Christian Church that has grown shamefully silent in days when it should be a visible, vocal prophetic voice condemning the present supremacy.I’m sorry for assuming that simply because a man of color finally occupied the seat of greatest power in this nation, that we could be less vigilant or passionate in the cause of equality, or that the malignant cancer of racism wasn’t as metastatic as it had ever been. I regret the way I and so many of my peers fell asleep.I’m sorry for not being brave enough in my church gatherings or family conversations or neighborhood interactions or social media exchanges, to speak explicitly when bigotry reared its head; choosing to avoid conflict rather than share the full contents of my heart, relational fractures be damned.I’m sorry for the hubris that was always so hesitant to look inward, for fear that I might not be as evolved as I was in the story I told myself.I make this repentance knowing full well that I have many more sins that go undiagnosed and confessed; grievous errors that I’m unable to see but that will be revealed in time. I share these words because those particular scales have fallen from my eyes, but am not too arrogant to know that there is much I still have not seen.The only thing I am certain of, is that the dream you told us you held within your furiously beating heart is still not a reality; that that glorious mountaintop summit is still a ways above us.And while this is true, I will need to keep learning and listening, and keep shining the brilliant light of truth into the dark corners of both who we are and of who I am.I will need to be in two wars simultaneously: the battle outside to condemn racism as a white human being living in a nation where privilege still bends the arc of the moral universe away from justice—and the equally brutal, relentless internal battle to expose the parts of me still acting as a conscientious objector in the fight for the value of every human being.I pray I fight in a way that honors you.
Ilhan Omar (D-MN): "In the last months of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in which he warned of three evils in our world: the evil of racism, the evil of poverty, and the evil of war. Dr. King was not one to sit down when faced with injustice. He launched the Poor People’s Campaign to build a multiracial working-class coalition to end these evils in the United States of America. Because Dr. King was taken from this world entirely too soon, activist and minister Ralph Abernathy carried out the Poor People's March, bringing tens of thousands of demonstrators to D.C. to advocate for better employment and housing conditions for those in poverty. Dr. King believed in this vision because the people had been ignored by politicians in Washington for too long. In his words:
"People ought to come to Washington, sit down if necessary in the middle of the street and say, 'We are here; we are poor; we don't have any money; you have made us this way... and we've come to stay until you do something about it.'"
The Poor People’s Campaign led to more funding for free and reduced lunch programs and the expansion of food stamps. It was a monumental step in showing Americans how the destinies of all working people are linked. In Congress and in my daily life, I will carry on with Dr. King’s vision of radical love. I won’t stop fighting to make sure every person’s most basic needs are met. Each and every one of us deserves the wages and housing we need to have a real chance at not just surviving, but thriving, in this country. May we never forget Dr. King's legacy."One thing I know for certain, there will never be a Donald J Trump Day. Although thousands of ugly, white, male gun nuts in Richmond are celebrating his fascist approach today. "Gov. Ralph Northam declared a temporary state of emergency days ahead of the rally, banning all weapons, including guns, from the event on Capitol Square. The expected participation of fringe militia groups and white supremacists raised fears the state could again see the type of violence that exploded at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.This morning Judd Legum published a piece in his Popular Information newsletter on how the Virginia extremists are using Facebook to spread their hatred and organize their rally:
For years, supporters and opponents of gun control have squared off in Virginia’s capital, Richmond, on the third Monday in January. With Democrats in charge of the state legislature for the first time in decades-- elected in part on promises to enact gun-control measures in response to a mass shooting-- a call went out over national pro-gun and right-wing networks to converge today.This increased attention has brought threats from white supremacist and anti-government extremists. Federal agents say at least one white supremacist group was caught planning a massacre with hopes of provoking a civil war. Virginia’s Democratic Governor Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency.Many of the pro-gun groups are trying to distance themselves from the white nationalists in advance, stressing their intention for a peaceful demonstration. But other groups have been using Facebook to broadcast couched threats and promote violence.On December 13, the leader of American Warrior Revolution, a paramilitary organization allied with the militia movement, posted a video to its Facebook page, which has more than 540,000 followers. Joshua Shoaff, a popular right-wing personality who goes by the pseudonym Ace Baker, went on an extended rant threatening Virginia state representative Donald McEachin.Shoaff was incensed by a quote, published by the Washington Examiner, in which McEachin suggested that Virgina could mobilize the National Guard to enforce new gun laws if local law enforcement refused to do so. McEachin’s comments came in response to a Republican-backed “sanctuary counties” movement, in which sheriffs have pledged not to enforce new laws such as expanded background checks.Shoaff declared that McEachin's statement amounted to treason and McEachin, who is African American, should be lynched:This message is directly to you. We're coming to your state. I live in Tennessee. My name is Ace Baker. I'm coming to the state of Virginia on January 20th and I hope to see you personally on Lobby Day. Because I would love nothing more than to tell you to your face, you are a coward. You are a tyrant, committing treason. And as a good friend of mine said a few minutes ago, treason is punishable by death. I'm not telling you that I'm going to kill you. I'm telling you that your acts constitute treason and the punishment for treason is hanging in the middle of the street ... You should be pulled out of office by the hair on your head, walked down the streets of the capital, walked up to the steps of a swinging rope that's placed around your neck.Popular Information contacted Facebook on Friday and asked whether this video violated their rules. Facebook responded by taking down the video and removing Shoaff's personal profile."We have removed this individual and these videos from Facebook. We are monitoring the rally and actively reviewing content against our Community Standards so that we can take action accordingly," a Facebook spokesperson told Popular Information.But Facebook did not take any action against the American Warrior Revolution page itself. Shoaff used the page on Friday to post another video, in which he said he stood by his previous video, and reiterated his belief “that tyrants should be hung in the streets to be made an example of.”
I would recommend you read the rest of Judd's essay at Popular Information here and I'll leave you with something more uplifting and inspiring... from Michigan state Rep. Jon Hoadley, the progressive candidate running to replace Trump ass-kisser Fred Upton in southwest Michigan. "Today," he wrote, "we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King. It's hard to find words that can adequately capture the gravity of his mission or paint a full picture of the forces he faced. Dr. King's message embodied the soul of our nation. He showed us how to build the more perfect union we had always hoped to become. Through protest, determination and tenacity, Dr. King organized a movement capable of speaking truth to power. I have strived to follow his example, working to codify his lessons in government. In the age of Trump, it can seem as if Dr. King's lessons and spirit are being forgotten by those in power. It can feel as if corruption and division are consuming us beyond repair. However, Dr. King's legacy is far too powerful to be reduced by any event or any political moment. Our commitment to democracy, practice of tolerance and compassion, our dedication to enrich the lives of our neighbors and ensure equality for all, are all based on his blueprints. It's up to all of us to carry Dr. King’s message forward and work to build another cultural reformation. It is up to all of us to make government serve people and community. And as was the theme of the Kalamazoo Women’s March, we must build power together. I hope you'll join us."
