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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Inclusion and Achieving the Dream
Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act - MLK behind him
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. For those of you outside the United States, it doesn’t seem to sound like much, just another federal holiday marking the birthday of some other “famous personage.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (it always sounds odd to my ear to have both titles in there) was a minister and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is mostly remembered for his civil disobedience and use of nonviolent protest to end racial discrimination in America; an end to segregation. What I always like to consider is that his vision was much much broader – he also was a proponent of efforts to end poverty and was staunchly against the Vietnam war. There is so much more to his story – he visited India, specifically Gandhi’s birthplace and it had a profound impact on his belief in nonviolent action as a way of demanding change; one of his closest advisers was a gay man and there is a direct line from his activities to those of the disability movement. According to Arlene Mayerson from the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, Inc. (DREDF)
“Like the African Americans who sat in at segregated lunch counters and refused to move to the back of the bus, people with disabilities sat in federal buildings, obstructed the movement of inaccessible buses, and marched through the streets to protest injustice. And like the civil rights movements before it, the disability rights movement sought justice in the courts and in the halls of Congress.”
Today is a day to think about who we are and who we want to be. As individuals and as a country. Inclusion, not exclusion. I have to admit, I fall into the trap as easy as other people. It is so much simpler to join against something than it is to join FOR something. Across the internet, I’m sure today, I’ll hear snippets of King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the rally at the Lincoln Memorial. And it is amazing and electrifying, even years later. It gives me goosebumps as much as “Four score and seven years ago…” and “Today is a day that will live in infamy…” But on that amazing, electrifying day, women were nowhere to be seen on the program; not one was on the program to speak.
This isn’t meant to be an indictment of King or any other luminaries, but as this is a day of remembrance, and of service and of thoughtful reflection on injustice and discrimination, it is a good time to remember our own blind spots and perhaps rededicate ourselves to greater awareness. Men, women, white, black, able-bodies, gay, straight, poor, rich, conservative, liberal…does it matter? Should it? We can’t help but categorize. We can’t stop that automatic labeling but we can be more aware of it and we can be willing to push our own personal thinking. It is only by recognizing the inherent value and humanity in each person that we truly can achieve the dream alluded to by Martin Luther King.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major. Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.
The New Year and Dred Scott
Happy New Year! (Or it was when I began thinking about this post…even if I did finish it just today)
Like the rest of the world, I too tend to “wake up” at the first of the year and try to go from 0 to 60 at the chime of midnight.
Like the rest of the world I’ll spend the next few weeks diligently trying to loose weight, learn a language, write a book, travel, blog more, enjoy family and jump out of an airplane – all at the same time. Ok, maybe not jump out of a plane.
But why do we do it? Begin every year with a, sometimes overwhelming, list?
I was wondering that this week as I blatantly avoided my gym due to it being packed to the gills with new-year’s-resolutioners. And yes, I’m aware that I too can be given that appellation – I am not a regular at my gym, no matter how much I may wish it otherwise.
I think it really may come down to nomenclature. New Year. In my head it is all about starting fresh. A new year, a new me. Tabula Rasa. The old me, the one who didn’t quite get things right, who gained 20lbs, who didn’t travel or read enough is gone. Now I can be a new me, a better me and the resolutions are just reminders of what the new me should look like.
What is interesting is that I had a discussion with a colleague whose take was fundamentally different. She saw the new year as an opportunity to learn from past mistakes. That each year builds on itself. While we talked about this it reminded me of a philosophical argument from years ago about how we look at laws and makes a very interesting parallel.
What I’m talking about is the infamous Dred Scott court decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford). What happened was that Dred Scott, a Virginia man born into slavery who sued for his freedom. While owned by a military officer, Scott travelled through and resided in Illinois and Wisconsin, both free states. He appealed to the court system that as he had been in those free territories, then he should, by rights, be free. The judge ruled “no” and Dred Scott was sent back to his master as property. A few years later, the 14th Amendment passed and courts began ruling the other way.
So here’s the question (and how it relates to my musing) was the Dred Scott decision wrong and the later courts got it right? Meaning, as my colleague promotes – are we are always moving ahead, learning, and therefore getting closer to some unforeseeable objective “better?” Or, is it like my view of the New Year – the “better” not really objective at all, but merely a reflection of our times and/or a reaction to where we are individually in our lives? As in, the Dred Scott decision was a reflection of our times and when times changed so did the court rulings. And, God-forbid, if slavery ever returned (and some would state variants still exist) that we would again decisions like the Dred Scott case.
When put in context of the legal case, my knee-jerk response is to lean towards philosophical optimism and agree with my colleague – we are in a state of constant improvement. And yet, I am loathe to let go of the artifice of starting fresh every January 1.
So…thinking about this, where do you find yourself in this new year?
ALA, Toni Morrison and the Joy of Words
A couple of months ago, I went to hear Toni Morrison speak at the opening session of the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference. I’ve read a couple of books of hers and they were…intense. That is the word that best describes them. They made me cry, they made me laugh, they made me think and they made me just a little bit uncomfortable in my everyday existence. So the experience of hearing her speak was something I wasn’t going to miss.
And she didn’t disappoint.
There are people who are writers and there are people who are storytellers. It isn’t mutually exclusive, but you always know when you meet the latter. They are the ones who can hold a room in thrall when they speak. The ones who can talk about their trip to the drycleaner and you can’t help but get drawn in to what they say, become mesmerized by it and suddenly it is no longer a jaunt across town, but a grand adventure, as exciting and overwhelming as Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” And the best storytellers don’t just entertain you with their narratives; the best storytellers make the tale personal, not only to themselves, but to you, crafting an intimate experience.
Toni Morrison is one of those best storytellers. She spoke about how she and her sister practiced their reading and writing growing up. She crafted mental images of how they would form letters with sticks in the dirt and how their mother once caught them copying a word off of a billboard that was *ahem* not one that little girls should know. She reminded us of how mysterious and wonderful words were, and reminded us of that joy in exploring them. I caught myself thinking about my own childhood and how large a role books played in them.
I grew up overseas in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain, off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Arabian Gulf. It is a beautiful country and has grown and changed so much in these past few years. However, when I was a child I don’t recall there being very many libraries at all. At least, I don’t have any childhood memories of visiting one. But I do have vivid memories of visiting the bookstore. There was one that my family almost always went to. I remember it being small, with narrow aisles, but there were books everywhere, on shelves higher than I could reach, all the way to the ceiling. And they were on so many interesting things: animals, and oceans, ancient civilizations, mysteries and adventures and stories of so many different places and people! I recall being overwhelmed and so very excited by it. I thought, if I could have every book in the store, then I would know everything about the world. I know other kids would visit the toy store and beg for this toy or that toy. I have to admit, most of my begging took place in that bookstore. Just one more! I really NEED this book too. Please?
And then there were the National Geographic books. An aunt in the United States would send them to us. I have dim memories of barely being able to control myself when those boxes arrived. Boxes and boxes of books! I learned about animals and people of the African safari, the mystery King Tutankhamun’s tomb, how the ancient Incas and Aztecs lived and so much more. I believe that my current love of history (and obsession with the History Channel in all its iterations) comes from that early exposure. Of course, my fascination with books only became all the greater when in middle school my parents bought “the encyclopaedia set.” I don’t recall who created those 20+ volumes of books but I was in love. Thousands and thousands of articles, essays and entries on these amazing people and events. I couldn’t help myself. There were more than a few school assignments that ended up being hurriedly written in the wee hours of the morning because I had paused to look something up in “the encyclopaedia set” and one article mentioned something in another, and the second cross-referenced a third, and so I would go and read more and more until suddenly it was 2:00am and I still had a paper to write. But oh how I loved those volumes.
Books became a part of my personal culture and belief system. If you had a question, then a book is where you could find the answer; if you wanted to learn something, a book could teach you; and if you were just bored and wanted to discover something new and entertaining, then a book could take you there. Toni Morrison’s recollections reminded me of that belief; of that love. We get so caught up now in work and information and digital and electronic formats; television and computers and smartphones. And trust me, I’m no luddite – I love what technology has done to society and how much more accessible information has become. I have a 55 inch television, an iPhone, two gaming systems, and at least 3-4 computers in the house (granted, not all of them are working right now). But we get caught up in the need for the information, for what the words mean that sometimes, we forget how much fun the words can be.
Toni Morrison’s ALA speech made us laugh; it made us gasp; it entertained and educated; but most importantly, Toni Morrison reminded us that we can go back to that childhood joy we all discovered in books. With a little nudge we can be reminded (and SHOULD be reminded) that stories and books hold that creative spark of both intimacy and wonder, encompassing the gamut of human experience that unites us all.
Thank you Toni Morrison.
A Fast Year
In early January I remember hearing someone say it was going to be a “fast” year. It was around the 8th and her exclamation was regarding the eye-blink between the New Year and then.
She was so right. I had a whole list of resolutions ready in January to make 2010 “the best year ever.” Blink. It’s March. Blink. It’s June, halfway through the year. Blink. We’re already almost done with the first week of August. I want my year back! At least a couple of blinks worth.
So what does this mean for August and beyond? I’m not sure, certainly some soul-searching and reconsideration of how I spend my time. I’d always believed in things like time management but I’m realizing that more than how I fill my time, it is the choices I make that are more important. I’m learning that perhaps the common complaint people have about “not enough time” and “balance” is really about priorities.