A day off is a day deferred
Jan. 21st, 2008 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day" is probably not the most precisely appropriate sentiment to express, given the solemn legacy Dr. King left behind. And while civil rights aficionados have plenty of progress to be proud of and happy for, recent events -- far apart on the socioeconomic spectrum, from the rural enclave of Jena, Louisiana to the privileged province of Golfworld magazine -- suggest that we haven't quite woken up from his dream yet.
Back in high school, my Hippie Friend Steve frequently wore a black tee-shirt with the following screen-printed image:
I always thought it was pretty clever, in a punny sort of way, while acknowledging the weirdness that it was being worn by an upper-middle class student in a school that I would guess was at least 90 percent white. Now I see I had it a little backwards: it's exactly that kind of sheltered, insular community that needs to confront the distasteful issue of prejudice and bigotry, but at the same time our efforts should not necessarily go toward "erasing" racism but toward recognizing it, resisting it and remembering it.
Because racism is kind of like the wind. As long as there are people different from each other -- which is to say, as long as there are people -- prejudices will arise from the perceptions of those differences and flow from the people who have something to lose and toward the people who have anything to gain, much like the wind blows from areas of heat and high pressure to areas of cold and low pressure.
So maybe our goal should not be to forget about racism entirely, as if it never existed. Instead we can use it as a reminder of what hate can do to people, individually and as a society. And we can view it as a benchmark of our progress, as a reminder of how far we've come and how far we can go.
We can't stop the wind, but we can make things a little warmer by embracing each other.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day" is probably not the most precisely appropriate sentiment to express, given the solemn legacy Dr. King left behind. And while civil rights aficionados have plenty of progress to be proud of and happy for, recent events -- far apart on the socioeconomic spectrum, from the rural enclave of Jena, Louisiana to the privileged province of Golfworld magazine -- suggest that we haven't quite woken up from his dream yet.
Back in high school, my Hippie Friend Steve frequently wore a black tee-shirt with the following screen-printed image:
I always thought it was pretty clever, in a punny sort of way, while acknowledging the weirdness that it was being worn by an upper-middle class student in a school that I would guess was at least 90 percent white. Now I see I had it a little backwards: it's exactly that kind of sheltered, insular community that needs to confront the distasteful issue of prejudice and bigotry, but at the same time our efforts should not necessarily go toward "erasing" racism but toward recognizing it, resisting it and remembering it.
Because racism is kind of like the wind. As long as there are people different from each other -- which is to say, as long as there are people -- prejudices will arise from the perceptions of those differences and flow from the people who have something to lose and toward the people who have anything to gain, much like the wind blows from areas of heat and high pressure to areas of cold and low pressure.
So maybe our goal should not be to forget about racism entirely, as if it never existed. Instead we can use it as a reminder of what hate can do to people, individually and as a society. And we can view it as a benchmark of our progress, as a reminder of how far we've come and how far we can go.
We can't stop the wind, but we can make things a little warmer by embracing each other.
