MLK - Familiar Territory

We are supposed to be further along. Closer to making the dream a reality. 

But here we are. 

And this is looking far to close to ground we covered sixty plus years ago, only heading in the wrong direction. Right now we're standing and watching, but before long we'll be the focus as we always are. Yes, we've been betrayed, again, but we don't have a lot of options, so that anger will have to be quelled and grievances allayed, yet again. I hope that we can again find the strength of character and the courage of conviction our grandfathers had.

MLK - some thoughts.

 He walked so you could run.

Or rather he marched. Which if you've ever done it for political reasons really is walking, along with thousands of others, to show your support for a particular cause or ideal. Which I have done on occasion. It's a interesting sensation, realizing that that idea that you hold in your head is shared by so many others. It's validating. Empowering. Inspiring.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., boy genius who went to college at fifteen, who won the Nobel Peace Prize before he was forty, whose oration still rings in the ears of anyone who has ever heard it - live or on tape. In an age before the internet, his name was known far and wide. Not for music or film, but for a drive for justice for those people oppressed by a system for which they had been forced to build the foundation. For organizing and guiding marches, sit-ins and protests. And that oration. He was a remarkable person in age where remarkable people were in short supply.

In his last speech, the iconic "I've Been to the Mountaintop," he compared himself to Moses, in that he would look upon the promised land, but would not live to get there. He had hoped to live a long life, but he wasn't worried about that, he had a people to save. The very next day he was killed.

And still, all these years later, we have not reached the promised land.

He walked so you could run.

He walked so you could run. For Congress. For Senate. For School Board. Own a business. Purchase a home fairly. For President. To be able to have a fair shot at building something for a legacy, for your children, for the future. So put your sneakers on. And run until your legs give out. The promised land awaits.

A word about Dr. King

Please don’t act like everyone loved my father. He was assassinated. A 1967 poll reflected that he was one of the most hated men in America. Most hated. Many who quote him now and evoke him to deter justice today would likely hate, and may already hate, the authentic King.
~ Bernice King

As we are on the cusp of a beginning of a return to what we hope is some degree of normality, we're interrupted on threshold as those people who have been enabling Cheato for the past four years are now invoking the words of Martin Luther King Jr. in an attempt to seemingly disappear their recent past. I've seen quotes from the good doctor by Senator Lindsey Graham and so to be former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany as though when they hadn't lived lives in direct contradiction to the man's teachings. The term hypocrisy doesn't even begin to cover it. 

But let's put that, and hopefully them behind us. 

We as a people like to re-write history to suit our own ends. Since his death Dr. King has been lionized in popular culture, but in the end he was just an ordinary man on mission during difficult times. In his life he was threatened, vilified, shunned and insulted. But he didn't let those circumstances deter him from his service. And some of us need to stop acting like America was always with him.

Dr. King hoped for a better America, and worked diligently towards that idea during what could be considered the Racial Cold War. He wasn't perfect, but who among us is. However his work and his legacy have served as inspirations for us to build on. Not just Black people, but all of us. But while we admire him, let us not drift into the realm of fantasy in our memory of him or his time. It does not serve him or us well. 

Despite fifty years and our best efforts we have not traveled far enough from where he left us. That's a reality. But that should not deter us from our efforts to push on. Overnight successes sometimes take decades. And since our goal is better place for ourselves and our posterity all we can do is grit our teeth and lean into the wind going forward. We may not live to see the final outcome, but we ARE going forward from where we are now.

Let us march.  

Dr. King would have....

I'm of the age where I now know that anyone who uses the phrase "Dr. King would have..." is usually about to frame this legendary icon's quotes or phrases to fit their own limited viewpoint. But I in turn remember the words of Abraham Lincoln, "don't believe everything you see on the internet."

Reddit - by bigtomisin

It is tiring to hear Dr. King's quotes used by people who don't understand them. Weirdly, these aren't ancient quotes or words spoken where we have no context, they were spoken with the lifetime of a good number of us. Had he lived he would be the same age as Barbra Walters, a founding member and still frequent guest on the morning talk show The View. It is in many ways sobering to realize that Dr. King's contemporaries still walk among us. Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, former aides, etc. In real terms, change only just happened. His personal secretary who is still with us and has many wonderful stories about the actual put your pants on one leg at a time man, not the myth. I understand Dr. King had a great sense of humor. I also understand that the man was as sharp as they come with a cue stick in his hand.

And while he was a Republican in his politics, the party that he was a member of isn't even a ghost of its former self. Those people who were called Republican in Dr. King's time would be considered middle of road Democrats now. So when I hear men who would have personally egged on Hoover's plans to discredit this civil rights icon try to manipulate his legacy for their own ends simply because they share the name of Republican,  I am appalled.

Once again history rises up, and beckons our call. Last time men like Malcolm and Martin answered. Who will it be this time?

Martin Luther King Jr.

There are moments in history.

Moments where the whole world changes, where a clear line of demarcation exists from the past to the now. A moment where we as a people can look back and see where something fundamental is different. Be that change the way we view the world, the way we look at each other, the way we think about life, it is crystal clear to all but the most obstinate. Those moments in history are created by men who dissatisfied with the way the world works in the then drag that reality, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the future.

One such moment in history was the 1960s. And one of those men was Martin Luther King Jr.

He didn't drag it though. He persuaded it to move with him. He hollowed out a path of non-violence that we still grasp with both hands in the present. History moved us.  

Today we very maybe having another of those moments. I say maybe because this moment is tumultous and ripe with possibility, and the lines that are mostly drawn in our heads and history are trending towards becoming far too stark to be ignored.

Will be lucky enough to birth another MLK?

Or will we all have to overcome this time?  

Dr. Martin Luther King

We're through the looking glass. People who represent everything the grand legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stands against have today made vain attempts to twist his words to show that their own ideas are good or noble. They debate that Dr. King would have been on their side in their mad quest to turn the US back to the 1800s. And you wonder how they can even fix their mouths to speak such blasphemy.

I don't profess to know all the words preached by Dr. King, but I do know that while he preached for peace and moved in terms of non-violence, he understood that his actions were but part of a greater scheme, one that did include a more militant side. Good protest has always done that - give options to the both the oppressed and the oppressor. Because people are not one-dimensional creatures. And because one hopes the oppressor sees the two possible ways of going forward and chooses to try to work through the peaceful means.

On this day we give thanks for his words and his actions. I only wish that we didn't have more on his path to travel, and that we'd already reached the promised land. 

Brother Martin

Martin and History in Selma, AL

I started a firebrand piece earlier. But it felt inappropriate. It would been in line with the episode of Black-ish recently did, but more a passionate realization of who I am in these "interesting times" but ultimately they would have been full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. 

Another time. Perhaps.

This place was originally someplace to vent, to howl into the darkness but lately I've been censoring myself. Professionalism and all that. In a quiet sense, a weird way of  honoring Dr. King's legacy. Because what he fought for was my right to be black and be me. A right to be black, educated, and be anything I want to be in a world full of possibilities. A right not always afforded those who came before me, and one I'm terrified that I will waste. A right that right now feels all too temporary. A right that my generation may have to fight for all over again to pass on to our children.

At least Martin blazed a path. And if it comes to it, this time we'll get a little farther.

Martin Luther King Jr.

If ever there was a need to build a time machine and to go back and pluck someone from the past because we need him today, it's Dr. King. A voice of calm in an ocean of outrage. A man who endured because he had to, because he knew that his people needed him to be more than just a man, but a symbol.

The most sad part about this idea is that he would recognize where we are now without any prompting...because I swear ain't that much changed.

1958 or 2015... ain't much changed.

MLK

Martin and Coretta. Class not swag.

I'm sorry sir, but we have a ways to go yet.

Your message has been co-opted, by politicians who want to remind people that you sir were a Republican...but fail to mention that the party has wholly transformed since your membership. By those who want to fight what they feel is unjust power, but fail to realize that you never once shirked the consequences of your actions even if the law was unjust. By those making to make a quick buck and plaster your name on flyers and attach it to every cause they can dream up. I'd like to tell you that we remember your message, even though it seems like only in our dreams.

I'm sorry sir, but we have a ways to go yet.

Because with dawn of a new age, where the promise of my childhood that any kid could be the President came true, we uncovered a lot of repressed racism. Even those who would stand with us have touches of it that they themselves don't even recognize. Today people would tell you "You're not like other black people," not realizing it means they've stereotyped all those not in the view. Today people would tell you "When I see you I don't see black," not understanding that to not see your blackness means they'd like to forget their own history. And those are our allies.

I'm sorry sir, but we have a ways to go yet. 

There is a place in the future where a person is judged on the content of their character. Where every man has a voice in their governance. Where the dignity afforded one through hard work and self sacrifice can be achieved by anyone who sets their mind to it, without regard for race or creed. Where we are all EQUAL. 

I'm sorry sir, but we have a ways to go yet.

But we will get there.

50 Years of Marching

Ramblings Post #235
Winners never quit, and quitters never win. I don't know why that strikes a cord now, that and I just now realize that listening to the copy of the MLK speech while trying to type is not the swiftest idea I've ever had. Nope, not swift at all.

via Redditor - Shiskebob

Fifty years ago, a man had a dream. He dreamt that one day, the nation of his birth would accept him as an equal. That he would judged by the content of character, by the result of his actions, and not by the mere color of the skin that random chance had bestowed upon him. That he wouldn't be consigned to second class citizenry from a country that expected him to defend it until death. And now, fifty years later, we've come farther than I think he might have ever dreamed. We have a president whose color he shared, and opportunity abounds. And yet in other ways we're still in that crowd, amidst the monuments built with the blood of forefathers, our ears ringing from his words, and still only hoping for a better tomorrow. For we are still held in the same regard as he was, as second class citizens undeserving of either justice or the benefit of the doubt by so many, as though the world spun and calender never moved.

But you keep marching until you get there. One guy marched for forty years until his people reached the promised land. Maybe we just have a little farther to go.

Keep the faith.

MLK

Many years ago, Dr. King had to sit down and tell his child that she couldn't go someplace because she was black. Then he went and did something about it.

Now, over forty years later I can sit down and have a meal just about anyplace I can afford. And think the food is okay. And like the decor. I can be picky. Or I can go to the park. Or a museum. Or downtown. Or the golf course. Or anywhere....

You might not think it means much, until you think about what it mean if you couldn't.

Thank you Dr. King.

Thank you so very much.

Blackout?

I did a quick poll of the my fellow workers in the office, and a few of them are going to participate in the National Blackout that's going on today. My online buddies have already admitted to not being compliant.

Which makes the whole thing pointless.

I've gotten a little tired of the historical black leaders, the theoretical president and vice-president of Black people - Jesse and Rev. Al - who fifty years later still want to march and boycott to show strength. They worked then. In specific instances and under specific circumstances they were very effective in showing the power and solidarity of a people disrespected. But just as we set the tools of the that day and age aside in lieu of new tools, so we must do the same with these.

Should we never boycott or march again? Sometimes the old tool is the best tool for the job, so there will come a time when they are most appropriate. This is not that time.

Current estimates set the spending power of the target group at 2 to 3 billion per day. Real money to those whose minds are consumed with small thoughts. To put it in perspective, the US government lost 9 billion dollars in Iraq last year, lost as in "we don't know who we gave it to - we don't know where it is now. That was 9 billion in CASH. Not credits or monies paid toward or contracts promised... billions of actual paper dollars. And nobody's that concerned.

Last year Walmart had billion dollar sales on SINGLE days.

A famous congressional anecdote goes that, "a few billion here, a few billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money" when discussing funding of bills and projects.

The amount we're talking is a drop in the bucket. To small minds a billion or two is ridiculous money. To the people whose minds we hope to change, it is pocket money. The stakes have changed, and the rules of the game must change with with it. The people with purpose must wrap their minds that the world has change. They dream of being Martin and leading the people, but even brother Martin would realize that those things that once worked so well need to put aside for other times.

And let's not get started on the modern March, which we turn into throwback road-trips and excuses to miss work. I listened to students boarding the bus for Jena with hardly a clue as to why they were traveling.

And since the whole project not a unified effort, it's effectiveness is questionable. Wholly questionable.

In an economy with a large number of people living check to check, stockpiling supplies for a few days really wasn't an option. It's payday Friday for a large number of Americans. Children need things and sales start today. The black American icon Denzel Washington's movie debuts today, and opening day receipts are crucial.

And a number of people enjoy the nightlife. The nightlife at black owned businesses.

Which gets me to the crux of my point. The vast majority of the people joining the protest generally tend to focus their dollars at black owned or black focused businesses already. So those businesses are the ones that will suffer as we cry into the wind.

And what was the point of that?

If we must make a statement, then let's make it. But let's find a new approach, a new language, a new tool to get our point across.

Barkeep - Do you have any ripple?