BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Subject: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 12:00 AM

Dr. King's birthday was Jan. 15. For those of you from across the pond, Monday is a USA national holiday in honor of him. In his last year of life, he was moving in the direction of expanding the American Civil Rights movement to broader human rights and economic equality. He was in Memphis as a prelude to a planned "Poverty March" in Washington DC. He was also meeting resistance within his own organization to the expanded focus, as well as dealing with calls for more militant action by younger leaders within the "Black Power" movement.

The following is copied from I Have Seen the Promised Land, by Taylor Branch

"Riots just don't pay off," said King. He pronounced them an objective failure beyond morals or faith. "For if we say that power is the ability to effect change, or the ability to achieve purpose," he said, "then it is not powerful to engage in an act that does not do that--no matter how loud you are, and no matter how much you burn." Likewise, he exhorted the staff to combat the "romantic illusion" of guerrilla warfare in the style of Che Guevara. No "black" version of the Cuban revolution could succeed without widespread political sympathy, he asserted, and only a handful of the black minority itself favored insurrection. King extolled the discipline of civil disobedience instead, which he defined not as a right but a personal homage to untapped democratic energy. The staff must "bring to bear all of the power of nonviolence on the economic problem," he urged, even though nothing in the Constitution promised a roof or a meal. "I say all of these things because I want us to know the hardness of the task," ....

The links below are to photo essays and an extensive excerpt from Taylor Branch's book cited above, published by Time and CNN. They are well worth seeing and reading. I was particularly struck by two impressions. 1. the expressions on the faces of, not just the leaders, but also of the ordinary Black citizens that showed the courage, fear, fatique and determination of the folks involved in the events documented, and 2. these were not a bunch of young, dumb, idealistic, energetic kids. These were mature, responsible, determined citizens who had had enough.


The Last Days of Martin Luther King Jr., photo essay

I Have Seen the Promised Land by Taylor Branch

Civil Rights Movement Photographs newly published from "Life Magazine" archives

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 12:22 AM

Janie, thank you so much, esp. for the links. It is indeed good to remember and to continue in our own ways.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:11 AM

Oops. I made a misleading statement above. "I Have Seen the Promised Land" is not published by Time and CNN. What I meant was the links were to webpages published collaboratively by Time & CNN.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:20 AM

My group sang a concert in his honor--annual event--at the Kennedy Center last Sunday, with lots of black groups also. We each sang as individual groups and we sang as a huge, thoroughly mixed group. Wonderful, stirring, experience.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing" is so much better a national anthem than the one we have.

Mudcatters might do well to remember Dr. King, among other things, was a Christian minister--which came through loud and clear in all the music we sang.

I had a chance to talk to some of the singers from the black groups.   And it came through--no revelation but yet again--that we're all just people.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 12:18 PM

Just a few of my own favorite quotes from the man who has had the most effect on me and my values....

Yes, Dr. King was a preacher and a man of God. In an address to the National Press Club on July 19, 1962, Dr. King said,...

"...Our goal is freedom. I believe we will win it because the goal of the nation is freedom. Yet we are not passively waiting for a deliverance to come from others moved by their pity for us. Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of America- we built it for two centuries without wages, we made cotten king, we built our homes and the homes of our mastera and suffered injiustice and humiliation- but out of a bottomless vitality continued to live and grow. If the inexpressable cruealties of slavery could not extinguish our existence, the opposition we now face will surely fall. We feel that we are the conscience of America- we are its troubled soul- we will continue to insist that right be done because both God's will and the heritage of our nation speak through our echoing demands..."

Dr. King later states a theme upon which his "I Have A Dream" is based in saying, "We are simply seeking to bring into full realization the Anerican dream- a dream yet unfulfilled..."

I have several quotes by Dr. King that I will be sharing in this thread as this htread develops...

My next post will deal with how Dr. King viewed "militancy"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: topical tom
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 12:55 PM

A great American hero of our times.A man of ucompromising priciples of freedom and justice, these to be achieved by non-violent means.Thank God for the gift to us all of Martin Luther King Jr.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 01:18 PM

In my opinion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr has unfortunately become a feel good symbol of "kumbayaism" in America.

In most communities of the United States it is relatively easy to voice support for MLK and his dream of an America where a person's racial/ethnic background is unimportant.

But it is far more difficult to confront the facts of institutional and personal racism in America.

Many of us are still climbing up those mountains. But some folks feel comfortable pretending that the mountains were never there.
And still others pretend that the mountains have all been torn down.

Wishing and pretending won't make it so.

One of the main reasons why so many African Americans are angry at the Clintons is that we thought they were our friends and would never ever use race baiting tactics against Barack Obama.

What does this have to do with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day?

I'd say it has a great deal to do with the reality of race, racism, and race baiting in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 02:11 PM

It does, indeed, M-Azizi... And many people think of King only in terms of his "I Have A Dream" speech which, IMHO, was the smoke from candle from the icing on the cake but the cake itself was (and is) the struggle....

I'm not too sure how many folks are going to join this thread but I'd like to consider myself a student and follower of Dr. King and so I'll be dropping in here now and then to share some of the cake...

Ten days before Dr. King was assasinated he spoke before the Rabbinical Assembly and here is what he said in reagards to militancy:

"Now, so often the word 'militant' is misunderstood because most people think of militancy in military terms. But to be militant merely mean to be demanding and to be persistent, and in this sense I think the non-violent movement has demonstrated great militancy. It is possible to be militantly non-violent."

In the following paragraph Dr. King follows up with, "Americans have a responsibility, indeed a great responsibility, to work passionately and unrelentingly for the solution of the of racism, and if that means constantly reminding white society of its obligation, that must be done. If I have been accused of that, then I will have to continue to be accused."

*******************************************************************

When I return to this thread I'll be sharing Dr. King's thoughts on "malajustment"... They are a treat...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 02:36 PM

I hear what you are saying, Azizi. But I don't see MLK Day as a 'feel good' event. I see it as an opportunity to reflect and recognize the work is not done. None of his work. I also consider him to have been much more than a leader of civil rights. He was a moral voice for freedom and equality of all people, and he was moving more and more in that direction when he was cut down.

I think to many, many people, especially White people, MLK day is nothing but a 3 day weekend. I usually participate in the MLK day march in my little village - one of the very few white faces. It is very clear from public discussion about affirmative action that many Whites are very ready to deny what a strong force racism continues to be in our country.

It may be that Dr. King would ultimately have been squeezed out of the civil rights leadership by extending his focus beyond civil rights for African Americans. There is really no way to know. I do know he was a powerful and effective voice and leader of this country, and not just of Black people in this country. His was a voice for social justice for all.

Taylor Branch comments some on this. Taylor Branch Interview

I am usually one of only a handful of white faces in the MLK day march in my little town. Part of that is an indication of white attitudes. Interestingly though, part of it is because the Black community also tends to want to exclude and limit participation by whites, and the white churches in the MLK day events in our part of the county.   I have experienced this first hand in trying to get information about the full range of events planned - many of which occur in the Black churches, as the local NAACP is mostly organized around the Black churches - phone calls never returned - etc.

The last time I attended anything other than the March was when my son was 10. After we left the church where the main program was held, he turned to me and said, "Mom, why do we keep coming to this. They obviously don't want us here." He was right. I always understood that our presence was tolerated and nothing more, but that year I had a clear sense that we really were not wanted.   

Now we go to Durham and participate there.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 02:52 PM

Janie, I'm very sorry that you and your son had those experiences you described.

Blogger Steve Clemons from Huffington Post wrote about what he calls the "tough love" portion of the Martin Luther King, Jr Day speech that Barack Obama gave today at Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK, Jr {and Senior's] Atlanta church:

"And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others -- all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face -- war and poverty; injustice and inequality.

We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/obamas-tough-love-speech_b_82368.html

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 03:08 PM

Here's a link to the text of Barack Obama's Jan 20, 2008 speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta {Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's church}:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/obama%20ebenezer%20Baptist%20Church.htm
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama-"The Great Need of the Hour"

-snip-

And here's another excerpt of that great speech:

"..on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.   

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts"...

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 03:54 PM

Isn't it odd how everyone nowadays behaves as if MLK were the only martyr of the civil rights movement?

I was always much more of a SNCC follower, myself.

Also odd that Sen Obama doesn't mention anything about the misogyny of the mainstream civil rights and Black Muslim wing of the Black Power and Black Arts movement.

That's pretty damn selective, IMO, when supposedly taking "one's own" to task for being anti-Semitic and homophobic.

What about anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant racism? What about the militaristic bent of Barak Obama and virtually the entire mainstream black community nowadays? How about the ways Barak Obama and the black mainstream tries to completely erase the influences of and ties to the Black Muslim community in the US?

Political expedience.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 04:56 PM

Well, I leaned a little more toward SNNC myself, GUEST, GUEST but I don't think there would have been a SNNC without the work of Dr. King, and others, prior to SNNC...

As for Obama, there is another thread on him for hashing out differences of opinion... But this thread is about our memories of Dr. King and if folks don't mind I'm just going to dance in and out of it and not get caught up in tangental issues...

Way back in 1957, Dr, King addressed the students at the University of California at Berkeley... He was invited jointly by the local chapters of the WMCA andf WYCA... The date was June 4th.

"...there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjutsed. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjuts myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to thentragic effects of the meathods of physical violence and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjutsed to such things. I call upon you t be maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of injustices of his day cried out in words that echo accross the generation, 'Let judegment run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.'"

*******************************************************************

Next: Hmmmmmmm??? Maybe a little message from the past to George Bush...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

Well, while King was talking to the choir at Berkely, people like Ella Baker were in North Carolina and Fannie Lou Hamer were in Mississippi...and the lunch counter protests weren't organized by King either.

Baker eventually quit SCLC and moved over to join SNCC, which was far more progressive than SCLC, especially when it came to treating women and poor, non-college educated black activists as equals. That simply never happened in SCLC.

In truth, it was SNCC, Stokely Carmichael, and some others who put women and poor blacks in leadership positions. They were the true progressives of the civil rights movement, IMO. King, the SCLC, and the NAACP were far more patriarchal, top down, church father dominated, and that really didn't reflect the spirit of the 60s. They were beholden to white funders and thinking strategically about the longevity of their organizations. So they were really opposed to the direct action tactics completely. SNCC never intended to be an organization with longevity. It intended to be, and was, a force that used direct action and civil disobedience to get society to change, not just the laws.

In that sense, they were part and parcel of the direct action movements for political AND economic AND social change that was the zeitgist of the truly progressive movements for change that came out of the 60s, including the early second wave of the feminist movement (before they ran the women of color and poor and working poor women out of it) and the environmental movement (before it moved to K Street and got cozy with Congress) and the Chicano(a)/Latino(a) movements for immigrant farm workers, etc.

SNCC and the Black Panthers did though, as the strong ties between those two orgs and the Black Arts movement demonstrated. It was very much in the same spirit as the radical New Left among white, Latino, and Asian students and poor whites being drafted into the war.

King, SCLC & the NAACP, if you understand the timeline of the civil rights movement and it's movers and shakers, were pretty much passed by, and on the verge of becoming irrelevant to the movement by the time King came out against the war and on the side of poor black workers. People simply don't realize just how silent King was between the passage of the Voting Rights Act (which didn't actually result in SCLC registering many voters in the south at all) in 1964, and his push over the cliff by the radical New Left to come out against the war on the poor and in Vietnam.

Berkely wasn't the center of the universe, it was just handful of white students and a couple of faculty who all were there at the time that the Voting Rights Act was being pushed through Congress, who thought of themselves that way. That certainly wasn't the way Berkely was seen in Greensboro or Chicago or Memphis, by blacks or whites.

What year was Medgar Evers assassinated? Malcolm X? Did the SNCC kids sit down at the Greensboro lunch counter? Remember, these kids were the first in their families to get to college, and they were being expelled for participating in the sit-ins. Many black families throughout the south depended upon white patronage to keep their jobs and their families together. Parents of those kids paid a price for "not keeping their children in line" in ways their white patrona approved.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming King wasn't an important leader, or largely influential. But to say that SNCC followed in King's and the SCLC's footsteps just isn't accurate or true. It is a lot more complicated than that. (BTW, the first sit-in in Greensboro was in 1960)

I'm with Azizi. It's all about Martin and Rosa and kumbayah these days. No mention of the fact that it was a woman--Ella Barker--who was the face of SCLC in North Carolina. There is a good reason why she left misogynist SCLC, and joined forces with SNCC.

Freedom Summer & the Freedom Schools--that was SNCC, not SCLC or NAACP or CORE. The SDS, the American Indian Movement, etc all modeled themselves after SNCC.

Mention Fred Hampton or Malcolm X, and you get glares (or worse) from the very conservative black middle class elite these days--both those supporting Obama and Clinton, neither of whom ever mention one word about the poor and oppressed in this country, much less come out against the corporate takeover of the US government.

As far as I'm concerned, there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Hilary and Barak. Or John McCain for that matter. At least Mc Cain has a bit better position on immigration than Obama or Clinton have.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 06:36 PM

Well, what a small world : )

Janie's impressions of our little small town march and celebration are right, of course, but not the whole story. There are people, and congregations, who clearly would like the day to be 'theirs', and my (white) presence doesn't make them happy.

Tough shit. I'm going anyway.

Not alone because there are plenty of other people who are as glad to see me as I am to see them, and we will march, and sing, and eat together. Some of them, this is the only time we see each other during the year, and we all share the blame for that, and changing that is my challenge.

I was at a meeting today where I recalled that the meals I've attended around this event have been some of the best of my life, if only because invariably SOMEONE has come to me and personally welcomed me. The point was being made that as long as people eat together, and make music together, boundaries must be broken down.

King belongs to all of us because he is one of the great and blessed people this country has produced, and the ripples of his love and conviction are still moving out. We are all in that stream together, peacefully, or kicking and screaming.

Thanks for the thread, Janie.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 06:40 PM

Yer excatly right... No arguments with anything you have said...

King was no Malcolm X... He was no Fred Hampton... What he was, however, was yer grandfateher's Oldsmobile civil rights leader...

The speech I made reference to at Berkeley was in 1957. not 1965 'er '66... Yes, King represented the old school but he also represented non-vilence and civil disobedience and that carried us many of us well thru the 60's...

It was a multi-facited attack from various factions with various tactics... And many of us were torn between slash and burn and non-violence... Slash and burn, IMO, is why Fred Hampton got murdered by the cops... The one thing that the US governemnt is good at is killing and they don't mind doing it so when the Black Panthers flashed guns--- even if it were for effect--- then the invitation/challenge was plainly there and the governemnt was more than willing to play it's part... I remember Frank Rizzo bustin' down the doors of the Phillie Black Panter chapter, making men strip naked and walked them thru the streets... Who won that one???

Frank Rizzo... Not the B.P.'s...

But I do believe that in each of our ways we chose our battles and our weapons...

Don't get me wrong... I knew folks and coordinated stuff with SNNC folks... We diodn't have SDS on our campus... We had the Radical Student Union of which I was the "rector" (don't ask me)... I know we were infiltrated by governemnt plants who came real close to gettin' our organization to fire biomb the universtiy presidents house after Kent State... I fought them and eventually got enough folks to see these bums for what they were and the plot didn't develope any further and these guys just disappeared into the wood-work...

When I hear the Who sing "We won't get fooled agian" I think of those days and I also think about Dr. King... He taught us to have the wisdom to not use violence... He atught us that violence begets more violence and that, in essence, has been the paradyme that amnkind has followed going back forever...

Malcolm got killed, IMO, partly because he was starting to talk about uniting with white people to defeat racism and colonialism... I know that's not the official story but I don't think it's that far off course either... I do know that "system" was glad he was gone...

Now, as for King... There's a wealth of stuff that Dr, King spoke of that folks don't readily know about and as long as this thread goes I'll be sharing more of his stuff... Some of it is quite "radical"... No, not violent, but radical...

Not to dismiss the importane of a Roas Parks, or a Stokley Carmicle, or a H. Rat Brown, or, or...

And, yes, after the Civil Rights Act was passed Dr. King did lie low fir a year or two... Some of this is explanable and he talks about this, as well... I do understand how he as an ordained minister might have to do a little soul searching with so much going on in '66 and '67... I don't fault him for that... He was a deeply spiritual man who waited on his Big Boss to tell him what to do...

Those who are not of Faith might not understand that... I do...

More Dr. King quotes and thoughts next time...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 06:50 PM

Not faulting any one thing or another about King. I'm just saying that making him into an icon also makes him into a parody of himself and the movement.

Maybe you don't watch Mad TV, but there is another generation who does, and they've had about all the MLK & Rosa Parks shoved down their throat that they can stand.

Shouldn't they at least be told that SNCC didn't have a single thing to do with violence, and MLK didn't have a single thing to do with direct action?

Time to move on into the present, and let them know who Michelle Wallace is, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 07:12 PM

I know what you are saying, GUEST, GUEST...

It has almost become a joke... Next thing ya' know Wall Street will figure out how to make big bucks on MLK Day and over time juts ween Dr. King outta the entire day...

That's kinda why I am sharin' stuff that alot of folks don't know about him or what he said... To me, "I Have A Dream", was just an average speech... I know this is heresy but there's so much more that folks need to know... Including his feelings about war in general and Vietnam specifically... About old men who order up the wars... About the folks who profit from them...

I will get to this stuff 'cause, for me, this is what Dr. King left... Not what corporate America has chosen as Dr. King's offical corporate and sanitized identity...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 07:39 PM

Poor "Kumbayah". Over time that song's gotten such a bad rap.
And it's really not a bad song, but oh what baggage it carries.

Let me clarify. I think it's a good thing that people of different races, ethnicities, nationalities, sexual orientations, religions, ages etc etc etc coming together to reflect on the life and celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's the touristy multicultural approach to this day that I have real problems with. By "touristy multicultural approach", I mean what I consider to be the shallow and erroneous assumption that one day out of a year [Martin Luther King Day] and one month out of a year [February, Black History Month] are all that is needed to learn about the accomplishments of certain, pre-selected & mainstream approved African Americans. Which is not to say that these persons didn't do important things, but their stories are only part of the whole.

By "touristy multicultural approach" I also mean the misguided and dangerous belief that if folks celebrate MLK Day and Black History Month, then they don't need to recognize and work through their own issues with race and racism and they don't need to work toward the eradication of this nation's institutional racism which favors European Americans and disfavors non-European Americans.

But it's a good thing if-as a result of such events, or as a result of private reflections during Martin Luther King Day, and other days-folks have a renewed resolve, and renewed energy to do their[our] part to make the world a better place.

Choose your cause/s and your strategy/ies.

And-if you are doing that which is good-more power to you!

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 07:55 PM

Yikes.

The funny thing is, if you think it's funny, that here in Old Virginee we already had Lee/Jackson Day on this Monday. Now it's Lee/Jackson/King day, and if that ain't ironic, I don't know what is. Wonder how he (King) would feel about that... is this a lack of racism, or the reverse?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 08:02 PM

Or better yet, in the ironic and iconic vein--WWMD?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 08:26 PM

Ahhhh, from Dr. King's Book entitled "Stride Toward Freedom" (1957):

" Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiril ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for and eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annililate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. A voice echoes though time saying to every potential Peter, "Put up your sword." History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations that failed to follow this command."

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:14 PM

Thank you for the idea of people as 'tourists', Azizi. You have a wonderful way with words.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the shallowness of some attempts at 'inclusiveness' when it comes to recognizing some of the cultures that make us up as Americans. There are some things that have become ugly and meaningless shadows of themselves, in a way that makes me distinctly un-proud to belong to the so-called Melting Pot: things like St. Patrick's Day, Mardi Gras, 'holiday' shows at school, etc. When the alternative is experiencing each other in depth, in reality, even in color, why do we settle for meaningless mis-engagement?!

We would do well to remember that there are bad tourists, and good tourists. And it is only by traveling with open eyes and open hearts that you truly see where you are. I think of people travelling to resorts in beautiful, but complicated places, never seeing beyond the facade. Then, think of travel experienced in ways that allow you be truly present in someone else's culture, home, land. The kind that reminds you of the very human things we share and enjoy together, and allows us to celebrate our differences because it's OK to see them, knowing that the very most important things about us connect us.

Let us really BE with each other when we visit, and our times together will be authentic, and worth repeating.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 10:54 PM

Well said, Azizi and Dani. And Bobert - keep those quotes a comin'!

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:20 PM

Let us really BE with each other when we visit, and our times together will be authentic, and worth repeating..
-Dani


Dani, thanks for that compliment.

I give it back to you with sincere gratitude for you have expressed what I wanted to say much better than I did.

I borrowed the idea about the tourist approach to multiculturalism from my reading though I don't remember which article or book.
This shallow approach to learning about and/or experiencing different cultures may have been addressed in an article about the book The Ugly American. However, I don't think it was from that book itself.

**

Here's my list of "be attitudes":
1. be for real {another way of saying "be authentic"}
2. be considerate of other people
3. be open to learning {be curious}
4. be flexible
5. be alert and aware {be safe}
6. be brave {be of good courage}
7. be helpful
8. be healthy
9. be joy full

and

10. be all you can be {that means keep working on knowing your self and improving your self}

{Thanks to the US army recruitment ads for "be all that you can be"}

:o)

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 20 Jan 08 - 11:35 PM

Thanks also to Janie for starting this thread, and to Bobert for sharing those quotes with us, and thanks of course to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for his leadership and his legacy.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 03:21 AM

When I lived in Casper, WY, we had an extra special remembrance every MLK day as a young man from there was killed in the south in the 60s when he went there to work for civil rights. In Casper, the majority of marchers on this day are white. The black population is very small in numbers. Even so, there was homophobia when my lesbian friends and a few others were made to feel distinctly unwelcome when they attended services for MLK at the AMEC. Nevertheless, we all came together at a banquet, every year with everyone welcome, some terrific speakers, music, etc. and continuing discussions and reports on what we were all doing in our community and state to fight racism and other human rights. Our organisation worked for human rights throughout the state and year.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 07:13 AM

OK, I've been known to grab a metaphor by the neck and strangle all the life out of it... but here are my thoughts this morning, as I wonder why I should leave my warm house, bundle up and head out in to the freezing cold:

I've had the pleasure of dealing with tourists firsthand many times, and have come to think of them as guests at a party. Think of the folks who show up at a big family party, many of whom you do not know, and do not even know who invited them.

I've roughly ID'd a few kinds:

There are the people who piss in the flowerbeds, throw cigarette butts out the windows. They are gently and subtly encouraged to top off and head on. If they don't get the hint, get your brother-in-law to tell them: you know the one!

There are those who have graced our presence from some neighboring, far superior town, and though they APPRECIATE SO MUCH the things we have to offer, it would be so much NICER if we did things thus and so, and everyone will be glad to hear how that little family business ought to be kept open 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, so much more convenient, and another thing, darling, this is just how things ARE, how they are DONE. Save me from such…. They are smiled at, encouraged to spend as much money as they would like, but it's so nice they have someplace better to go home to.

Then there are the people you immediately feel kinship with. You overhear their conversations, see how they interact with their charming, respectful children, how well they treat the coffee guy, and think, "wow, wouldn't it be nice if they lived here? If she was on the x Board, if they were my son's classmates?!" And you find yourself telling them things; the best place to get fresh eggs, the building downtown you wish someone would restore, a good church choir…..

Unlike Stephen Colbert ( ; ), I do see color. How nice the world is with all kinds of it! But the above scenarios, to me, have transcended race; I've seen them all. And I wish it were so for everyone, but know that it is not.

So for my part, when I feel like a tourist, I will try to be a well-behaved guest at the party, confident in my invitation, and knowing that part of the fun of life is finding our places together. I will be myself. And some will welcome me, and there are great things we can do together. Some never will, and it's both of our losses.

Anyone notice the interesting google ads popping up below?

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:49 AM

katlaughing and others,

I'm not trying to excuse the fact that in the past and probably in the present there are times that some Black people weren't {aren't} open and welcoming to the attendance and participation of White people at our [Black people's] commemorative and/or celebratory events.* However, it should be noted that there may have been {may be} other conscious/unconcious reasons for this fact besides straight up racism. Among those reasons may be:

1. Direct knowledge of and/or indirect knowledge of White people co-opting Black culture [sayings, songs, dances, fashion styles, customs etc] and not giving Black people the credit for these indices of Black culture. Given this historical and present day fact, some Black people may take umbrage at the fact that White people [in my opinion, correctly] consider the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr to be theirs just as much as it is Black peoples.

2. Some African Americans were/are uncomfortable around White people and do not feel that they can not be {act like} themselves if there are White people in attendance. Therefore, these African Americans felt/feel that having White people in attendance "spoils" the event [i.e. makes it less authentic because they are unable to act authentically]

3. Point #1 is reinforced by direct experience or second/third hand experiences with some White people who expected/expect to be treated better than a "regular" person in attendance at these events {ie they expected/expect to be lauded over, given the best seats up front, publicly recognized by the pastor, or master of ceremony etc}   

4. Black people have {have had} direct experience or know of other Black people who have experienced {experience} White people who are {were} patronizing toward them. This speaks to the overarching, deep rootedness of racial prejudice in America, because the White person may not actually have been patronising, and/or the White person may not have consciously known that they were being patronising.

5. Related to point #4, in their attempts to prove that they aren't prejudiced, some White people act/have acted inauthentically toward Black people. For example they are/were overly friendly and praising toward Black people, or tried to act too hip, or what they think is "Black" {which is a racist statement in and of itself}. This is related to the "Some of my best friends are Black" statement, a statement that-even if it is true- should never be uttered in interracial settings.

6. Black people may have direct experiences with or knowledge of others experiences with White people who tried/tried to take over the planning of interracial events {because of these White people's prejudiced belief that they know better than us [Black people] and/or that they are naturally better at planning than we [Black people] are.

7. In activist movements, direct experiences or knowledge of others' experiences with White people who joined/join organizations as spies for the opposition {ie establishment}, and who attended/attend planning meetings and gave/give information about those plans to their White parents and associates who then worked against those plans, thus reinforcing the {admittedly racist, untrue and sometimes counterproductive} notion that "White people can't be trusted".

-snip-

*Some Latino/a and Native American peoples may also share these same {conscious/unconscious} attitudes and concerns about White people's attendance at "their" events.

I am definitely not saying that I approve of racially segregated events-including Martin Luther King, Jr day orKwanzaa.
I am saying that people should try to be open to understanding what might be motivating Black people and other people of color who disapprove of White attendance at these types of events.

-snip-

With regard to katlaughing's comment that some Black people are homophobic, it is true that some African Americans have personal and collective work to do in order to eradicate their negative attitudes toward homophobia. These attitudes are reflected in how African American and non-African American gays, lesbians, and transgendered individuals are treated in Black churches, and in other parts of African American society. For these reasons, I'm glad that in his January 20, 2008 speech at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's church Barack Obama directly referred to the need for Black people to eradicate homophobia   

-snip-

Regarding katlaughing's use in her post of the abbreviation, "AMEC": in the Eastern region of the USA, this is usually written "AME", for instance Bethel AME Church. AME {African Methodist Episcopal} is a Christian religious denomination. AMEC probably means "Africam Methodist Episcopal Church".

Another African American religious denomination with a similar name and history is AMEZ {African Methodist Episocopal Zion}.

Note:
I hope that I don't come across as being patronizing. I'm sharing that explanation about AME ecause this is an international forum with few publicly acknowledged African Americans who post here. Because of this forum's demographics, I believe that there may be people reading this thread who didn't know what the abbreviation AME means.

I also feel the need to say that because of this forum's demographics, I believe that it's important to share my insights about Black people/ "Black" issues as I've done in this post and elsewere on this forum. This is not to say that there aren't now or haven't been in the past any other African Americans posting on Mudcat. However, it appears that those African Americans who have/do post here, don't publicly acknowledge their racial/ethnic identity.

I choose to refer to my racial identity in my Mudcat posts when I think it is pertinent to the topic being discussed. This includes some of my posts about my main folk interest-children's rhymes. In my opinion, when collecting and studying children's rhymes, racial/ethnic demographics should be collected and considered just like other indices such as gender, age, and geographical location...

For what it's worth, I'm trying to carefully walk a tightrope between speaking for myself [which is what I want to do] and being seen as this forum's [to date?] only African American spokesperson [which others may erroneously conclude from my posts].

But enough of my focus on me-Happy Martin Luther King Day to all!

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 08:59 AM

I posted this before reading Dani's last post.

Right on, Dani!

And yes, I have noticed how the google ads have referred to Martin Luther King, Jr. However, your references to guests misbehaving at parties may have changed the dynamic for a bit as the links to google ads down the bottom of this message box that I see now refer to Alcohol Rehab Treatment {Inpatient Alcohol Treatment Program 19 Years Experience in Recovery} and Salt Lake Alcoholics {Substance abuse addict? Get help. Treatment in a caring environment}.

By the way, I had to read that "Inpatient alcohol treatment program" a couple of times before I "got" that the word was in patient and not impatient.

:o)

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:23 AM

I mentioned that Dr. King had some things to say that coule very much apply to the current administration:

From his 1967 book entitled "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community":

"The large power blocks talk passionately of pirsuing peace while expanding defense budgets that allready bulge, enlarging allready awesome armies and devising ever more devestating weapons. Call the roll of those who sing the glad tidings of peace and one's ears will be surprised by the responding sounds. The heads of all nations issue clarion call for peace, yet the come to the peace accompanied by bands of brigands each bearing unsheathed swords.

The stages of history are replete with chants and choruses of the conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace. Alexander, Genghis Khan, Julius Ceasar, Charlemagne and Napolean were akin in seeking a peaceful world order, a world fashioned after their selfish conceptions of an ideal existence. Each sought a world at peace which would personify his egotitic dreams. Even within the life span of most of us, another megalomaniac strode across the world satge. He sent his blitzk-rieg-bent legions blazing across Europe, bringing havoc and holocaust in his wake. There is grave irony in the fact that Hitler coule come forth, following nakedly agressive expansionist theories, and do it all in the name of peace."

*****************************************************************

When I reread these words its not a far stretch to insert "George Bush" right between "Genghis Khan" and "Julius Ceasar"...

Next: Dr. King's thoughts on "hippies"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:34 AM

LIke the spirituals, MLK Day is everyone's heritage and doesn't belong to any one person, group, or time period. It's not the ONLY thing in our heritage, but it is part of it for all of us.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:37 AM

Susan, re your last post, though I'm willing to share, I do believe that spirituals composed by enslaved African Americans are more ours [African Americans]than anybody elses.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Big Mick
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:50 AM

Azizi, you know by now that I hold you in the very highest esteem. Gotta take issue with you on that last one though. While it is true that the songs came out of your tradition of struggle, faith and hope...and I certainly agree that the style of singing these songs is firmly rooted in your cultural background....these songs are timeless because they speak to everyone. Whether we are speaking of the old spirituals, or the new songs about the struggles, what has always touched me about them....and inspires me to be always on the trail towards being a more complete human being ... is that these people, so full of reasons not to be grace filled, are grace filled nonetheless. That is, in my mind, what makes these sung prayers universal, and a lesson that The Greatest One gives us all in the beauty of the words and singing. It is the same in all songs of struggle, no matter the culture. Were I you I would take great pride in the fact that these songs are of my people, but they belong to the ages, and if there is wisdom in this world, they will be claimed by all.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:51 AM

Unfortunately for you, Azizi, that sharing thing is what happens when things work right. There used to be a whole lot of things that we [White European Americans] used to own that now belong to everybody.

Heritage is one thing, but if it's about ownership for you, you're going to be frustrated. Spirituals belong to anyone who sings them. I really hate racism, and that 'ours/yours' attitude IS racism. There are people in this world who have a vested interest in keeping old wrongs alive and old wounds open and bleeding. It doesn't matter if you're WILLING to share - it's going to happen.

In a perfect world, people will share songs without caring what color their writers were. People will remember where the songs came from and honor that, but realize that origins and ownership aren't the same and not be afraid of stepping on someone's toes.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:55 AM

To clarify, spirituals not only speak to everyone (they sure do, looking forward in time from their creation), but I meant that they are part of everyone's history (taking the back-looking, historical view).

Whether any individual's or group's part in creating or perpetuating them was shameful, proud, or ignorant-- we ALL carry that heritage, just as we do MLK Day and all it represents. We share the heritage, and we share the opportunity to do something with it NOW.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 10:58 AM

People whose experience of life arises predominantly from 'White culture' would go a long way toward helping to heal the wounds between Blacks and Whites if they would understand and be mindful of Azizi's 21 Jan 08 - 08:49 AM post. Our neighborhood, prior to our moving here, had had only one other White family in its entire history, in the deep south, in a city where the only violent political coup (that overturned a democratically elected, Black government) in the history of the United States occurred.

Some wounds take a long time to heal. The wounds are real and they are legitimate. They do get reopened from time to time, because racism is still very much a fact of life for many Blacks and other people of color. We see it every day in the way our neighborhood is treated by the local government as compared to the white neighborhoods.

We have been welcomed very warmly into our neighborhood, and we are welcome to participate in and celebrate all of the important events that happen here. But we are always mindful that we are, like it or not, representatives of a people who have done a great wrong to those among whom we live, and we need to be understanding of the legitimate concerns that our neighbors have about how they are treated by people like us in the larger world.

If you approach events like MLK day with humility, kindness, and understanding, even in the face of what look like perceived slights, you will go a long way toward helping to heal those wounds.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:06 AM

Carol, thanks for the sermon. Some of us have heard it before; some of us practice and preach it ourselves; but thanks.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:09 AM

You're welcome, Susan.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:16 AM

Well, Dr. King spoke of songs in an interview in "Playboy" magazine... I've got the transcript (no not the danged magazine) somewhere and unless someone finds it before I get back here will share it with you all later...

Gotta go to work now... Yeah, no rest for the weary... Even on Dr. King's birthday...

He also wrote about them in one of his books... I think I can find that, too...

But, don't let me forget to share what he wrote about "hippies"... I think he was somewhat befuddled by them but, hey???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:32 AM

I posted about my first-hand experience and was confirming what others have already posted about homophobia. Certainly, we encountered, and still do, homophobia across the board.

Jeri, well said.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:44 AM

Well, I'm sticking by my guns and saying I find the holiday as meaningful as President's Day. That is to say, a superficial holiday to teach an official hagiography to school children and give public employees another day off.

The canonization of King is sad, because it takes away the humanity of what everyone endured to bring about change. The big defenders of the man and the superficial holiday these days are very conservative politically, and are heavily invested in maintaining their delusions that the country's upcoming generations are the least bit interested in "the message". They aren't, because it has precious little to do with their personal lived experiences.

I work in the most segregated urban elementary school in our city--more segregated than even the whitest schools--just over 80% African American students, and 92% of the student population receives free lunches. So I'm in one of three poorest and blackest schools in the district. We had the obligatory assembly on Friday, and the kids did nothing but complain about being forced to do the assembly AGAIN, screwed off, and generally paid no attention to what the nice white lady on the stage was admonishing them to think.

The same social disease exists around here with the thought police (nice try blocking my access again kiddies, but by now you should know if I want to get back in, I will) and censors. It's quite clear there is no room for any posters to speak an opinion that is widespread among young African American (except in the company of their elders of course--gotta maintain the "we love the church" facade, and that's a boundary they rarely cross. But they are sick to death of Martin and Rosa being shoved down their throat, and being guilt tripped by their elders about "the sacrifices made and the people who died".

Nice, well intentioned white AND black teachers, all. But they moved out of this hood a long time ago, and keep the school segregated as a magnet to "keep it real". Except the hood is now 63% Asian, and 20% Latino.

So shoot me for saying the day has become just another meaningless holiday. And that MLK is fairly far down on the list of African American male leaders of the civil rights and black liberation movements I most admire.

But there it is.

Mudcat Censors, please deny my access now, delete the posts from me, etc. so these sheep--oops--I mean flock, won't be offended.

Hey--worshipping at the feet of the MLK legacy is a damn sight easier than learning the history, right?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:49 AM

I thought this was of interest. There are also some interesting links at the bottom of THIS PAGE:

'I have a genetic dream'
Posted: Monday, January 21, 2008 12:07 AM by Alan Boyle

It's been almost 40 years since a great man lost his life, essentially because he had a dream of racial equality. As America celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day today, there's been a resurgence of interest in the issue of race - not only because a black man is a serious contender for the presidency, but also because scientific trends have raised new questions about the concept of race.

On one side, we have DNA pioneer James Watson's comments about potential correlations between ethnicity and intelligence - comments that sparked the biggest controversy in Watson's controversial career. On the other side, we have genomics maverick J. Craig Venter's observation that "race is a social concept, not a scientific one."

This year's HapMap genetic survey adds to the picture's complexity, noting that there are links between geographical origins and genetic traits, ranging from your vulnerability to diseases to your vulnerability to underarm wetness. Just as we're getting over the idea that your skin color defines who you are, researchers are pointing out that genetics can play a role in defining what you will become.

When it comes to higher functions, however, the nature-vs.-nurture argument comes to the fore. If one geographical population behaves differently from another, is it really a case of genetic differences, or rather of cultural differences? New research indicates that the pull of cultural values can be surprisingly powerful, potentially leading to changes in the wiring of the brain.

Such findings reinforce what Martin Luther King (and J. Craig Venter) said: Much of what we think of as racial differences have to do with social differences instead. When populations are isolated, genetic variations and environmental factors tend to take those populations down separate paths. That's how some of our ancestors happened to end up lighter-skinned than others.

Today, we're dealing with the multimillion-year hangover from those differences, as well as our hard-wiring for "us vs. them" tribalism. I have a dream that a deeper understanding of genetics will finally help us bridge the gap.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 11:55 AM

I agree in part with GUEST,GUEST.

However, let's not neglect the courage of King and so many others who put it on the line back when there was a line which to cross meant a severe beating at least. Telling kids who know where they are in the economics of life that they are free is quaint crap meant to assuage consciences that likely need it. King was an outstanding individual and a very brave one, too. He knew the dangers he faced and he faced them anyway. For that history owes him his day.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 12:05 PM

I'll take what you guys and gals have said under consideration.

But it seems to me that many White folks don't mind saying that the parts of Black cultures or other people of color's cultures that they {White people] like belong to the world, but European cultures are generally referred to by European ethnicities or/and nationalities.

Given what folks are saying here, I suppose that means that all "classical music" that was/is composed by Europeans and all folk music composed by Europeans aren't really European music since they can speak to any and all folks regardless of their race/ethnicity...

Then why is the standard definition for classical music only that music that was composed by European people?

I'm asking not to be argumentative but to "hear" and try to understand your positions on this.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 12:07 PM

Yet, none of you gives a shit about the hypocrisy exhibited here (nor the delicious irony) of holding a gung ho conversation about King, while your Mudcat Masters censor all opinions that dissent from the conventional Mudcat view?

First they censored Gargoyle...

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 12:28 PM

Then why is the standard definition for classical music only that music that was composed by European people?

It refers to a long "tradition" (history) of socially- and commercially-controlled music that originated in European societies.

Rich folks (such as royalty) sponsored starving artists to compose music for them, at their behest, honoring their families and interests in a very inbred society of European people. Art, music-- these were the property (in that time) of the upper class, not the "people."

FOLK music was the music of the people.... CLASSICAL music was the upper-crust's property.

See?

It had nothing to do at that time with color, and everything to do with social class.

There were significant MUSIC differences as well, but as for why "classical" = "European"-- because that's what the Europeans in power at that time decided to call "THEIR" music.

The term stuck.

It refers not to Europeans in general but to Europeans supported by rich Europeans.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 12:36 PM

Further, re: ... I suppose that means that .... all folk music composed by Europeans aren't really European music since they can speak to any and all folks regardless of their race/ethnicity...

I would suspect that most Mudcatters would agree with that but that most averge people on the planet who may not be as culturally "aware" as your average Mudcatter may be stuck in a perceptopn where they have not even thought about it at all.

Here at Mudcat I suspect we're a group of people who are a little bit better informed, and with a little more multicultural experience both in general socially, and in their relationships.

Beyond that, there is the confusion in the way one might speak of "origins" in the same way one might speak of "characteristics" of the music, complicated by the fact that most music categories are and have been the artificial constructs of TODAY'S commercial enterprises. "Country" artists, for example, decry being "pigeon-holed" into that category, and then market the heck out of themselves IN that category, and it may have nothing to do with origin. Or someone might claim "country" as a point of cultural origin while creating a form of music that sounds nothing like the rest of "country" music as so labeled by the record industry.

Language-- complicated stuff.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 12:52 PM

Thanks for the discussion, people. I really appreciate your candor, Azizi. Keep it up.

I am fresh back from the march, and post-march church celebration.

I have to report that the crowd was far smaller, and the singing thin, sad and unmoving compared with previous years. Why, I wonder? Despite my frustration, you will be glad to know that I didn't swipe the bullhorn.... though I dearly longed to ; )

At church, there were plenty of good thoughts, prayers and speeches, but very many mixed messages. Lots of talk about unity, forces for change, working together, etc, but it was still a celebration by, of, and for a small handful of black churches. They referred to the lovely, spirited children's choir as the 'community choir', and that bothered me a little bit since only a few churches were represented. Guess different people have different ideas of what makes up a community.

Speeches that won the oratorical contest (that only those few churches knew about) were read; amazing, wise thoughts from brave, smart children. Again, from only a few churches. I've heard white children at these occasions wonder how their classmates knew of these contests, but they didn't.

And while some speakers made me feel very welcome as just one in the number, without picking out or finger pointing, there were just so many references to this banquet, that meeting, such-and-such a committee, where "you all are needed and welcome", it's clear to me that the rest of the community is NOT welcome to plan for and participate meaningfully in the event. Which is all fine and good, unless you are CALLING it a community celebration, open to all.

So, it is a little painful, but whatever... I go anyway, because I believe a) my children should know the racial and social history of their hometown, even as it plays out today among their and my peers, b) people should march to commemorate the sacrifices of the civil rights movement, and c) King's legacy should be remembered, taught, lived out.

And, it is absolutely important to know the provenance of a song or style of music. Azizi is right, but I can't imagine she means the rest of us shouldn't sing them. Spirituals are one of the most important kinds of music in my life. Plus I can and will sing "Lift Every Voice and Sing" with the best of them, and wish the kids (both black and white) I saw out there today would, too.

Dani (an im-patient woman)

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:04 PM

Forty years ago King was murdered. Forty years later the rights he stood up for, the rights he took the bullet for have yet to descend to the Black people of the USA. I say that not to slur people who gave of their time or money to take King's dream a step closer to reality, but rather to say it is anything BUT the reality for Blacks in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:39 PM

And of course, it's easy beans to say it was KING who did it all, right? Ignore those nasty 60s SNCC radicals Bobert claims 60s were violent. This is KING'S day, and KING'S civil rights movement, and we don't talk about anything or anybody else, because that makes us all too uncomfortable.

BTW, it's his birth we celebrate on MLK Day, not his death. But you'd never know it from the contemporary "celebrations". At our school, we had an African drummer beating out a martial beat for the children to march to the cafeteria in silence "in honor of Dr. King". This is what King was about? Militaristic "silent marches" to a martial drumbeat?

What the hell happened to his stand against US militarism, hmmm?

This thread, just like the US celebrations taking place all over the country today, are doing a tremendous disservice to the future generations in teaching them a sanitized version of the struggle for black liberation in the US. That movement hardly began and ended with King in the 50s with desegregation laws. As Peace points out, it ain't exactly been love, peace, and equality ever since.

Anyone hear any discussions of the anti-war King today in their "rememberances"? I doubt it very much. Because the poor and working poor black community is very heavily invested in the volunteer military, and refuses to challenge the warrior hierarchy of the old warriors.

Deleting my posts is an extremely childish exercise in bullying, BTW. But hey--if that's how you want to play...

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 01:57 PM

Here I come with my favorite word again.   Dialectic.

Dialectic -In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 04:53 PM

"Playboy" Magazine, January 1965

Playboy:

"We Shall Overcome" has become the uofficial song and slogan of ther civil rights movement. Do You consider such inspirational anthems important to morale?"

King:

"In a s ense, songs are the soul of a movement. Consider in World War II, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" and in World War I, 'Over There' and 'Tipperary', and during the Civil War, 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' and 'John Brown's Body'. The Negro song anthology would include sorrow songs, shouts for joy, battle hymns, anthems. Since slavery, the Negro has sung throughout his stuggle in America. 'Steal Away' and 'Go Down, Moses' were the songs of faith and inspiration which were sung on plantations. For the same reasons the slave sang, Negroes today sing freedom songs, for we, too, are in bomdage. We sing our determination that 'We shall overcome, black and white together, we shall overcome some day.' I should also mention a song parody that I enjoyed very much which the Negroes sang during our campaign in Albany, Georgia. It goes 'I'm comin', I'm comin'/And my head ain't bendin' low/I'm walkin' tall, I'm talking strong/I'm America's new Black Joe.'"

*******************************************************************

There is another reference to music in Dr, King's book entitled "Why We Can't Wait" which I will share later...

Hope folks are enjoying reading some of Dr. King's writings and interviews I'm trying real hard not to typo them into my usual so it is a tad tedius but, hey... I'm sure Dr. King would be happy to know that this ol' hillbilly loves him eough to "struggle" thru real typing and proofreading...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 05:30 PM

Dani, of course I believe that everyone can sing any song including what used to be called Negro spirituals and which I now call African American spirituals.

Bobert, thanks for sharing Dr. King's writings and interviews.
Fwiw, I wasn't familiar with several of the writings that you featured.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 05:50 PM

Dennis Kucinich honored Martin Luther King today with this message:

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
the legacy remembered,
the message that should not be forgotten

The homage that Americans pay today to the inspiring life and lasting legacy of Dr. King is a fitting tribute to this leader who spoke so eloquently of peace, of social justice, and of equal rights under the law and under the moral covenant that established and guides this great nation. But, as we survey the grim realities of today, across this country and around the world, that rightful homage also has the somber ring of a faint and distant eulogy for a man and a message from another time.

That other time that we remember and honor was then. But, more than ever, it is also now.

In his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, on April 4, 1967, Dr. King spoke of one war that was destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Vietnam.

The Vietnam War resulted in the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese civilians in a nation of about 40 million - 10% of the total population of Vietnam. Americans lost 58,202 soldiers in that war. And in hard, cold numbers, the Vietnam War cost the United States the equivalent of $662 billion in today's dollars.

So far, today, this no-end-in-sight war against Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million innocent Iraqis in a nation of 25 million. Four thousand of our best and bravest have died, and nearly 29,000 have been wounded. In hard, cold numbers, the Iraq War will cost the United States more than $2 trillion.

What would Dr. King say today? What would his message be to the President, to the U.S. Congress, and to the American people? It would be, I deeply believe, the same as it was more than 30 years ago: Iraq is a war that is destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.

And, it was only two years ago that the leadership of the Democratic Party, without invoking Dr. King but aligning itself with the powerful principles that he espoused, promised an end to the abuse of political power and an end to the war that was devastating the people of two nations. And Americans, believing that promise that we would "be free at last" from the policies that morally and economically enslaved this nation and unrepentantly took control of another, elected a new Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.

Tragically, in the two years since, nothing has changed. The policies of this President persist and prevail. The Congress yields and subjugates itself time and time again. And the powerful, righteous, and universal message of Dr. King has been forgotten.

Dr. King's concluding remarks in his Riverside Church speech called for an end to the disintegration of humanity brought about by war: "Somehow this madness must end," he implored.

It is not in our power to bring Dr. King back, but it is within our power to resurrect his spirit in our daily lives and in the policies of the government that we elect to represent and lead us. He demonstrated throughout his entire life that social and economic justice are achieved not through compromising what we believe, but rather, committing to what we believe – whatever the odds.

In this crucial year for the future of our nation and the future of our world, today is the day to remember Dr. King's words, embrace his spirit, and fortify ourselves with the message that he left for us.

It is time, once again, to ask what we can do to forge ahead – in our votes, in our support, and in everything we do -- to reach that place where his words, his strength, and his optimism become more than a legacy. They become the policy and mission of this nation: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."


Dennis Kucinich

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:26 PM

The most difficult part about reading and rereading Dr. King's words is, as Dennis eluded to, how things haven't really changed that much...

We are mired in war, in discrimination, in hatred, in intolerance, in ignorance and in the same flawed political system that just is up dealing with probelms in a modern world...

Also in the Playboy interview King expressed a belief that by the turn of the century the US would have moved to an intergrated society... Reality is that we have not done that... We rae still very much segregated... There is more public school defacto segrgation now than there was 20 years ago... We do not worship together... We are not an intergrated society at all and the folks who want to keep it that way have the power to do just that...

It is my ***belief*** that Dr. King would have gotten US there... Okay, there would still be pockets of holdouts but as they died off they wouldn't be replaced... That is my belief...

More quotes later...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:41 PM

As far as I'm concerned, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's primary identity and role in the human drama was and is as our era's greatest apostle of nonviolence. That he was African-American, and therefore a member of a group sorely in need of the kind of justice that can only be won by steadfast and militant nonviolent action, was important but ultimately secondary.

There is a trend these days to forget Dr. King's principles and to celebrate his birthday as a "blacks-only" event. This is tragic and absolutely contrary to the man's message. It's wrong for white folks to dismiss MLK Day and Black History Month as something that concerns "those other people," and it is just as wrong for black folks to use Dr. King's memory to celebrate all things African-American, including the worst and most destructive aspects of thug culture, and to exclude people of any other race from inclusion.

Azizi, I usually agree with you and generally sympathize, but to the extent that you're telling us that white folks have no business singing spirituals or otherwise honoring and enjoying African-American culture, you're not only wrong, you're in direct conflict with the principles and the dreams of the man we honor today.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 06:51 PM

PoppaGator, you are misinterpreting my words.

At no point in this conversation or in any other post on this forum or anywhere else have I ever said that "white folks have no business singing spirituals or otherwise honoring and enjoying African-American culture".

Perhaps you posted your comment before reading my 21 Jan 08 - 05:30 PM post:

"Dani, of course I believe that everyone can sing any song including what used to be called Negro spirituals and which I now call African American spirituals."

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 07:47 PM

I think it is good to remember and, perhaps adopt, Morris Dees' terminology in referring to Americans of various descents, i.e. American of African descent; American of Irish descent; American of Native descent, etc. As he puts it, it recognises our commonality first and foremost. I am pleased to see, by a quick google search, that others are using the same terminology.

From LaShawn blog:

If you must refer to my race, call me black, not "African American." It is offensive to me. There is no such color, race, or nationality. I am an American of African descent.

I have degrees in English and law.

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett: A Biographical Sketch of America's First American of African Descent Diplomat

This was an exciting find worth sharing, which also come up in that search: Archive of rare books and arts of Americans of African descent history. A small snippet of what was found: here are first editions by Langston Hughes and nearly every other writer from the Harlem Renaissance, many of them signed; a rare biography of the architect Paul R. Williams; and the oeuvre of the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. There is an edition of "The Negro's Complaint," a poem complete with hand-painted illustrations; books by and about every notable American of African descent from George Washington Carver to Bill Cosby; and thousands more items concerning those whose names were lost or never known.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 07:58 PM

Okay, lets get back to songs... And if we keep in mind that Dr. King saw the civil rights struggle as a struggle of blacks and whites yoked together to overcome segregation and discrimination then I think we can all relate to what Dr. Kings wrote in his book "Why We Can't Wait" in 1963...

Here are his words:

"An important part of the mass meetings was the freedom songs. In a sense the freedom songs are the soul of the movement. They are more than just incantations of clever phrases designed to invigorate a campaign; they are as old as the history of the Negro in America. They are adaptations of the songs the slaves sang- the sorrow songs, the shouts of joy, the battle hymns and the anthems of our movement. I have heard talk of their beat and rhythum, but we in the movement are inspired by their words. 'Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Satyed on Freedom' is a sentence that needs no music to make its point. We sing the freedom songs today for the same reason the slaves sang them, because we too are in bondage and the songs add hope to our fetermintaion that 'We shall overcome, Black and white together, We shall overcome someday.

I have stood in a meeting with hundreds of yougsters and joined in while they sang 'Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around'. It is not just a song; it is a resolve. A few minutes later, I have seen those same youngsters refuse to turn around from the onrush of a police dog, refuse to turn before a pugnacious Bull CFonner in command, of men armed with power hoses. These songs bind us together, give us courage, help us march together."

******************************************************************

I think Dr. King better stated the imporatnce of song in this book than he did in the "Playboy" interview becuase of his greater emphasis on the importance of songs to the "movement"...

Now, as a traditional country blues player, I have learned afew things about blues music and musicans from the generation just before Dr. King...

Perhaps my favorite bluesman from that generation was Edward "Son" House, who like Dr, King, was also a preacher... Son House, unlike Dr. King, was conflicted and tormented by hie music because the generation just before him viewed it sternly... They labeled it "Devil's Music"... And so Son House, being a man of Faith, was terribly conflicted... Looking back at those times I fully understand why the juke joint was packed on Saturday night... It was a way of just rising above the terrible poverty and living conditions that black people suffered from during the height of the Jim Crow years... Thats why there ain't much 'blue" in the blues... It is, for the most part, celebratory music that uplifts one's spirits...

When I reread how Dr. King viewed the freedom songs during the movement I can't help but see connections between the blues and freedom songs in that both were/are intended to make us feel better about ourselves in the midst of struggle...

And it ain't a black thing... It ain't a white thing... Its a black and white together thing for as long as there are those among us who are oppressed no of us are truely free...

Now I've hurt my head... Think I'll go play a couple ol' Son House songs...

Hippies??? Maybe next...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:02 PM

Silly bears, sing whatever you like, honor a song's history/roots. What else is new? This is the mudcat, let's move on....

Here's a question: What songs did you all sing today?

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:34 PM

Well, I sang "Preachin' Blues" that Son House wrote

I'm gonna get religion
Gonna join the Baptist Church
Yeah, gonna get religion
Gonne join the Baptist Church
Gonna become a Baptist preacher
So I don't have to work...

Felt good and seemed appropriate...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 21 Jan 08 - 09:49 PM

Azizi, I don't want to speak for you, or assume I am interpreting what you are conveying correctly. I certainly don't want to imply that growing up being devalued by a majority of the people of this country because I am a West Virginian is comparable to the experience of growing up being devalued and also persecuted because being African American.    My people - many of the people of the southern Appalachians-came to this continent because of persecution and prejudice - but there is a huge difference between the experience of my ancestors and yours. My people had some choice in the matter. They were not captured by other tribes, torn absolutely without their consent from their families and their lives, with no way back. They were were not subjected to attempts to absolutely strip them of humanity. They legally had some rights and protections.    Even those of my family who were indentured were considered less in rank, but not less regarding innate person-hood.

My people suffered, but there was no systemic effort or legal sanctions in place to the extent as to try to make them less than human, as occurred with the slavery of Black people in the Americas. Suffering is certainly a universal human experience. Hope is essential to survival and some sense of wholeness and of our own worth.    Faith can sustain hope when the present reality appears to hold little, or no, likelihood of hope or power in the present.

I am not a scholar of such things and I may be wrong in my following assumption. Slavery has existed since the dawn of civilization. But until the unique institution of race-based slavery was instituted in the Americas, I don't think slaves were viewed as subhuman in most cultures in which slavery occurred. Devalued? Yes. But devalued in terms of rank, not in terms of humanity. The American institution of slavery seems to have been unique in that respect.

Azizi, I don't hear what you said about ownership as an injunction for others to keep their hands off. I hear it as an admonition to remember, honor and validate the terrible realities, past and present, of the uniquely American institution of slavery out of which these powerful songs arose, even as we take them up into our own present day concerns and realities.

I find myself thinking that the synthesis of this particular dialectic is not "yes, but...." It is "yes, and...."   

Janie

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:29 AM

A very nice thread in most respects. They were troubled times and in the worst of times great men can rise to the top. Lots of wonderful quotes made on this thread. Here are a few more:


"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.   Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world."

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire...or preserve his freedom."

"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."

"It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood."


Pretty great stuff ain't it?






BTW, those are all quotes of Malcolm X. Why don't we close the banks and give the school kids a day off for Malcolm? Matter of fact, why don't we teach ALL of them about Malcolm in similar ways to the ways we teach about Dr. King?

Just wondering.............

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:55 AM

In Dr. King's book entitled "The Trumpet of Conscience" from 1967 Dr, King talks about 3 groups of young people. The first group are those young people who are stugglin' and confused by the events of the 60's, the second group are the "radicals" and the third group, the "hippies"...

This is what Dr. King says about the hippies:

"The younh people in the third group are currently called 'hippies'. They may be traced in a fairly direct line from yesterday's beatniks. The hippies are not only colorful. but complex; and in mnay respects their extreme conduct illuminates the nefative effects of society's evils on sensitive young people. While there are variations, those who identify with this group have a common philosophy. They are struggling to disengage from society as their expression of their rejection of it. They disavow responsibility to organized society. Unlike the radicals, they are not seeking change but flight. When occasionally they merge with a peace demonstartion, it is not to better the political world, but to give expression of their own world. The hardcore hippie is a remarkable contridiction. He uses drugs to turn inward, away from reality, to find peace and security. Yet he advocates love as the highest human value- love, which can exist only in communication between people, and not in total isolation of the individual.

The importantance of the hippies is not in their unconventional behavior. but in the fact that some hundreds of thousands of young people, in turning to flight from reality, are expressing a profoundly discrediting judgement on the society thay emerge from.

It seems to me that the hippies will not last long as a mass group. They cannot survive because there is not solution in escape. Some of them may persist by solidifying into secular religious sect; their movement alrweady has many such characteristics. We might see some of them establish utopian colonies, like the seventeenth and wighteenth century communities established by sects that profoundly opposed the existing order and values. Those communities did not survive. But they were important to their contemporaries because their dream of social justice and human value continues as a dream of mankind.

In this context, one dream of the hippie group is very significant, and that is its dream of peace. Most of the hippies are pacifists, and a few have thought their way through to a persuasive and psychologically sophisticated 'peace stategy'. And society at learge may be more ready now to learn from their dream than it was a century ago, to listen to the argument for peace, not as a dream, but as a practical possibility: something to choose and use."

*****************************************************************

Well, well, well...

After all these years of thinking I was an "old hippie" I find that, inspite of the bellbottoms, the sex, drugs and rock and roll, that I'm more an "old radical"...

Oh well????

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:29 PM

One difficulty with the notion of world-wide peace is that we have nothing with which we can compare it. We have no idea what it would look like or how it would work. It makes the sales job very tough. "I'd like you to buy this product. No, I can't show it to you. No, I don't really know what it is. BUT, . . . ."

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:51 PM

Three words, Brucie...

...Department of Peace!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:55 PM

The one thing that would make that an easy sales job would be describing how war-related industries would translate to jobs in peace-related industries. IMO, people will fear the great displacement of jobs. I have no idea how many people world-wide are involved in war: soldiers, materiel producers, etc. But I would guess it is LOTS.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:02 PM

In fact, I don't even know if data exists about that. Anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:07 PM

I thought this article was worth posting in its entirety.

'Editorial note: Jack Schwartzman was a lifelong opponent of war. This article, reprinted from the July-September 1981 issue of Fragments, explains his views. Approximately ten years after the article was published he voiced his opposition to the Gulf War and ten years after that, in the last weeks of his life, to the war in Afghanistan.


We were discussing war poetry in class. One student, rather bright, remarked:

"I know that war is destructive, but you must admit that it provides jobs, good jobs."

As he started to talk about the many "good" jobs that war "provided," I noticed that the heads of his peers were happily nodding in agreement. It struck me that theirs was the generation that would, in a few short years, "inherit the earth." I had to speak up, to refute their views before it was too late, before their bland acceptance of war cliche's became too deeply embedded in their philosophy. Grimly, desperately, I commenced my refutation.


***

To begin with, a "war job" is "a piece of work of specific character undertaken to assure the success of a particular war." There are many wonderful war jobs: soldier rapist, executioner munitions maker bombardier torturer, construction worker destruction worker lamp-shade maker [ed. note: a reference to lampshades that the Nazis made from human skin], ambulance driver inferior-race exterminator nurse, informer undertaker spy, surgeon, propaganda minister war prisoner prison-camp guard, draft-board official, chaplain, and prostitute (who sets up her headquarters near the military base). This delightful group keeps the war effort going.

Morality sanctifies all war jobs except those which create destruction presently considered "unsportsmanlike," such as poison gas, dum-dum bullets, and (possibly) nuclear arms. "Traditional" means of slaughter on the other hand, are fully approved. (How is scalping regarded these days?) The agitation is almost never against war itself but only against some currently "unpopular" methods of obliteration.

However I must not digress, or dwell on such trivia as groaning, moaning, and maiming, but concentrate strictly on "economic" issues. Let me launch this charming dissertation, therefore, with the assumption that, during wartime, one-third of the population is totally employed in the war effort. (The actual figures are unimportant; the formula would work with whatever statistics are used.) In such a case, the remaining two-thirds of the people are compelled to feed, shelter and clothe not only themselves but the basically parasitic holders of the war jobs. Yet in spite of shortages, and despite the bombings and the killings, not only is a part of the total population able to provide for all, but production is actually booming.

Compare this situation with the one that prevails when "peace" finally arrives. Most of the surviving holders of the old war jobs now find themselves unemployed. With the entire population available for civilian production, only a proportion of the potential labor force is working, and millions barely survive. Production seems to be exhausted.

Why should this contrast exist? The question suggests a paradox that is seemingly insoluble.

No wonder then, that my observant student, noting the economic disparities in times of war and peace, should yearn for a nice little war when jobs are plentiful and employment is secure! No wonder likewise, that those who advocate socialism should point to the apparent paradox as a contradiction "inherent in capitalism and seek total government control so that the economy would simulate wartime conditions and provide jobs for all!

Is there an answer to the problem?

The answer is there for all to see, especially in time of peace. Does it not become painfully clear when farmers are paid not to produce, when supplies are dumped overboard, when tariffs prevent the importation of cheaper better goods, and when unions prohibit the installation of labor-saving devices, that deliberately-devised "blockage" exists somewhere in pipes of the economic machinery? Does it not become evident, when most people are in desperate need, that this blockage effectively stops supply from reaching demand shutting off access to much of land and its produce?

The problem, therefore, lies in the inability to produce, but in refusal to produce or distribute.

In time of war, the powers-that-be merely suspend their own rules against unlimited production and temporarily rescind their own regulations against the availability of natural resources, thus spurring on total economic activity. In time of peace, however, much of the source of all production (Nature) is fenced off by speculative monopoly, and unemployment and poverty result.

The paradox is solved (or, more correctly, disappears) when it is realized that cessation of production is artificially induced. The so-called paradox turns out to be only a contrived illusion.

It is not "necessary" to wage war in order to obtain jobs. On the contrary war destroys jobs (not to speak of job-holders). There is no production in destruction. All that is needed in order to restore full productivity (in war or in peace), is to open the gates to Mother Nature, who always bountiful, and who always provides sustenance -- and jobs.

This is the answer to the problem.

And this economic exposition does not even begin to touch, in its intensity the mania known as war. Not only does war kill, shatter, and enslave human beings; not on does it eliminate goods, factories, and cities; but it also obstructs the vision of the eternal values of life. Each conflict sets back the advances toward Light; each conflict plunges the world further into Darkness; each conflict gives birth to barbarians, illiterates, and murderers. War feeds on itself.

My student's use of the word "good," as an adjective to describe war jobs, brings to mind a passage from Stephen Crane's bitterly ironic poem:

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because yur father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Yes, indeed, dear student. War jobs are good - and war is kind.'

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:27 PM

Yo, Brucie...

Go to Dennis Kucinich's website and see what he has to say about a Department of Peace...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 05:11 PM

Thanks for all this, Bobert. Lots to think about. I'm re-looking at my hippie friends (and my ideas about hippies) in light of King's words, and all of your.

Interesting.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:05 PM

Well, ya' all... I've always been a student of Dr. King... Okay, I don't wear it on my sleeve but I have lots of his writings stashed away in files and so, rather than be accused, viewed or otherwise seen as a tourist (a term I fully undwerstand) I'm just going to keep this thread alive with more of Dr. Kings words...

Dr King, abopve all, was a man of intense "faith" and "Faith"...

In his address before the National Press Club in july of 1962 he said:

"If the inespressible cruelties of slavery could not exringuish our existence, the opposition we now face will surely fall. We feel that we are the conscience of America- we are its troubles soul- we will continue to insist that right be done becuase both God's will and the heritage of out nation speak through echoing demands."

*****************************************************************

There is no other statement that I can find theat better exemplifies Dr. King's "faith" and "Faith"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 09:57 PM

Barack Obama Speaks at Dr. King's Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf0x_TpDris

"On the day before the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Senator Barack Obama delivers a speech to the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.

January 20, 2008

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 11:15 AM

Yeah, but Obama didn't get a letter from King's son like Edwards did. Why do you suppose it is that Martin Luther King III didn't do the same for Obama? I don't think much of Obama, BTW. Far too conservative for me.

Here is the report I'm referring to:

King's son urges Edwards to press on
Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 10:01 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: 2008, Edwards

From NBC/NJ's Tricia Miller
Just before the debate on Martin Luther King Day, Edwards' campaign released a letter of encouragement that he received from none other than Martin Luther King III, the son of Martin Luther King Jr.

The letter followed Edwards' private meeting with King in Atlanta on Saturday. King applauded Edwards' focus on poverty and urged him to press on in the presidential race.

"I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are -- a struggle for justice," he wrote. "And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election."

Edwards and King first met a year ago when King introduced Edwards when he spoke at Riverside Church in Manhattan. There Edwards stood in the same place King's father had forty years earlier and applied his words on the Vietnam War to the Iraq War, telling an audience that silence is still betrayal (a message he repeated on the steps of the South Carolina capitol yesterday). King concluded his letter by telling Edwards to press on.

"Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice," King wrote. "My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going."

Full text of the letter is below:

January 20, 2008
The Honorable John E. Edwards
410 Market Street
Suite 400
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

Dear Senator Edwards:

It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.

There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.

I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.

You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.

I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.

From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.

I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.

So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.

Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 11:33 AM

I believe the way King has been made into the single icon of the civil rights movement is deeply problematic, especially when it comes to teaching the next generation.

It is virtually impossible to wade through hundreds of didactic hagiographies and find anything useful to use as a teaching tool in terms of children's books.

As a K6 librarian, I pull them all and put them up, but I also use the day now to inform students of the wider civil rights movement, especially the Little Rock Nine, Ruby Bridges, and other figures and events they are far more interested in learning about, and are much more relevant to their lived experiences.

The King stuff is just too "church father" laden to be very useful, except when telling King's story, which doesn't come even remotely close to telling the story of the civil rights and black liberation movements.

And Poppagator, I have a real problem with attitudes like yours that makes King "the" non-violent icon of our time. That is the problem, in a nutshell, with the ways those sorts of beliefs erase the actual history. As is Bobert's view that SNCC was associated with violence.
SNCC stands for "Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee". They were deeply principled, but often in disagreement with King and SCLC because of their use of more direct action oriented tactics than King was often willing to use.

Showing kids what those kids (and many other activist children) suffered for THEIR commitment to non-violence has a far more profound effect on them (and one they actually remember) than more sanctimonious preaching about the virtues of King ever will. And for that reason, I believe the holiday has lost it's meaning, and is now just another day off.

I don't usually use Black History month for the civil rights struggles. I use it to get at little known aspects of black history. I'm also doing a really cool project this year teaming with our science and global studies specialists this year to teach the Serengeti migration--a brilliant way to get kids to realize that Africa isn't about a bunch of people running naked through the jungle.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: PoppaGator
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 12:23 PM

Did a post get deleted?

I read something to which I intended to respond ~ especially because I was mentioned by name (fake-name) ~ thought it over, went to the bathroom, came back, and now it seems to be gone.

Anyway: let me clarify a couple of things:

1) I am a pacifist and consider non-violence to be of absolutely primary spiritual import. This certainly affects the light in which I consider the legacy of Dr. King, but I certainly understand that not everyone shares my viewpoit.

2) I don't mean to begrudge folks of African descent their celebration of their unique heritage on this holiday. (I certainly take every advantage of celebrating St. Patrick's Day, after all!) My problem with the misperception of Dr. King's feast day as a "blacks-only" celebration is that white Americans need to understand and to be included in commemorating the man and his mission of uniting two separate Americas into a unified whole. Well, eventually.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:36 PM

Yes, my posts are being censored/deleted whatever you choose to call it, because I'm not popular with the moderators of this website.

Mind you, I don't do anything against the FAQ stated Mudcat rules of decorum. However, I do routinely break the unwritten rules of challenging the US boomer/Mudcat collective conventional wisdom, which reflects the middle class neo-liberal orientation of this website. This thread is a nice case in point. I post a dissenting point of view (from the conventional one being put forth here, but quite in tune with the current "edge" of younger Gen X & Y'ers. It gets deleted. Why? Mostly because the moderators detest me personally. But also, they would like to maintain the veneer of civility--they are merry censors here.

I just like to point out when they do it, so they erase all traces of my having been here.

Such a bastion of free speech, this place.

From a distance...god is watching us, no?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Big Mick
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:54 PM

I have undeleted your messages. As best I can tell, you have violated none of the rules. You post with a consistent name, didn't attack anyone personally, and clearly stated your opinion. I don't see these posts as even combative. I have deleted messages of yours in the distant past, mostly when you were making personal attacks, or just trolling. These posts don't do any of those things.

Should the mod who deleted these have a problem with this, please PM me and we can talk about it.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 08:12 PM

The SNCC officially advocated non-violence until about 1966, but somewhere along about 1964 the first steps away from that position began to occur within the organization.

It began with a decision to allow members to carry firearms for self-protection. In fact, SNCC members took much of the blunt of the violence rained upon freedom riders and voting organizers. Once violent white racists figured out they were alienating so much of the nation with their public violence against civil rights activists, they took it underground and started laying wait and laying traps to brutalize SNCC activists out of the public eye. The perception of some SNCC leaders, including Stokely Carmichael, was that non-violence was no longer effective as a political tool once it was no longer drawing violence against the activitists in the public arena for all the nation to see and be shocked and dismayed. By 1966 the organizational leadership had shifted to those, like Stokely Carmichael, who were also moving in the direction of violent resistance and the Black Power sector of the Civil Rights movement.

It would appear this internal conflict within the organization over the sanctioning of violence was never successfully resolved one way or the other. Carmichael and others left SNCC for the Black Panthers in 1967. H. Rap Brown became the head of SNCC, renamed it the Student National Coordinating Committee, and advocated violence. He himself left for the Black Panthers in 1968. By that time, SNCC was no longer much in the way of a functioning organization.

This internal conflict regarding non-violence vs. violence reflected what was happening in the larger civil rights movement. There was considerable turmoil and disarray within the movement by 1966 or 67. King was struggling to try to keep the movement together and move it back in the direction of unified non-violence at the time of his death. It is debatable that he could have succeeded, had he lived. Within the movement, it appears he was being marginalized.

It is incorrect to make a blanket assertion that the SNCC was non-violent. It would have depended on both the point in time of which one is speaking, and given the disagreement that existed within the organization beginning in about 1964, it probably also varied by campus.

What I take from all of this is that violence begats violence.   From it's beginnings SNCC was primarily a militant non-violent organization. Some of its members were probably moral pacifists (i.e. pacifism as a moral position) and some were pragmatic pacifists. I read somewhere that the SNCC were the shock troups of the non-violent civil rights movement. As they became covertly targeted out of the public eye, it is understandable how those collective experiences eventually lead some of it's members, especially the pragmatic pacifists, to abandon non-violence as a strategy.

This is not the greatest of comparisons, but I think there is some truth in it. Malcolm X appears to have started on the other end of the path from Stokely Carmichael. They met briefly in the middle. Malcolm X was assassinated before he had walked much beyond that meeting place, and I don't pretend to know how much further in the other direction he may have walked had he lived.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 08:46 PM

Yo, GUEST, GUEST...

Chill...

UI never associated SNNC with violence... If so, show me the post where I did so!!!

I did, however, associate the Black Panther Party with violence becuase of the "guns" that the Black Panters weren't shy about showing...

I did speak about the Philly chapter and how the "guns" being shown gave Police Chief Pig Rizzo the perfect opportunity to bust into the local Black Panther headquarters, make the folks in there strip naked and march them thru the street s ofm Philly ... Yeah, I did say that and I stand behind it...

I had lotta friends in SNNC and organized stuff with them and never thought of them as preaching violence... Never...

What, just because I happened to allign more with SCLC that makes me a SNNC or SOC hater???

That is copmpletely fu*ked up!!!

I also had close contacts with SDS... I had meetings in Charlottesville with Bill Kunstler and Jerry Rubin...

I brought not onlt the Black Panthers from Cicago but also the White Panters from Ann Arbor to Richmond to help them try to organize...

So before you go calling me so white Uncle Friggin' Tom yer-grandfathers-civil-rights activist, get your story right!!!

I supported everyone who was in the movement... I did not support guns or violence... As rector of Virginia Commonweath University's "Radical Student Union" I threw out two friginn' J. Edgar Hoover ***plants*** who tried to get the RSU to burn the universtity's president house... Had they won over the RSU and carried out the burning then VCU might have been the next Kent State... Instead, we were able to organize a massive student strike with thousands of kids demonstarting against the war... That was more meaningful than havin' a couple kids shot trying to burn down a friggin' house...

Now, GUEST, GUEST, you may think that we should have had a couple kids shot rather than mobilizing some 5000 kids and if that is your opinion then we differ as much today as we would have differed back then... We weren't going to stop the war by alienating people... Demand??? Yes... Alienate??? No...

I am proud to say that thru demanding that my very Republican Nixonite father finally came around and marched in the Moritorium...

That is and was the power of non-violence...

So, bottom, line, if thru violence you think we can change the world, in the words of John Lennon, "count this ol hillbilly out"...

Plus, if you think thru vilence that you can change the world you have some company on Penn Ave... So does Bush...

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 08:47 PM

Janie, I posted above about Malcolm but was pretty well ignored. Doesn't really matter but I think your point re: Stokely and Malcolm X is accurate to a similar degree that I believe King was moving toward the crossing point a well. Malcolm was indeed moving towards that same point but from the other side when he was killed. What might have been lives in only personal interpretations and can never be known but simply discussed and argued over.

I believe that much of what was "The Movement" was better represented by others but MLK was a real factor and one to be remembered. That we forget others and for me especially that we fail to remember Malcolm for his own highly significant role seriously troubles me.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 08:48 PM

Oh THANKS for undeleting the messages. That makes me feel special, considering I'm still in "access denied" status and can't freely use the Mudcat front door. Don't you Mudcat mods ever get tired, wearing those heavy boots?

Janie, here is the problem I have with interpretations like yours. It completely overlooks what those kids did. Completely devalues everything SNCC stood for, everything they sacrificed, and well...just everything.

Your interpretation is all about what SNCC wasn't for most of it's life, and is historic neo-liberal revisionism at it's worst, IMO. All that just to lionize Martin?

Stokely Carmichael was not a violent, evil man--not by a long shot. And your portrayal of him as such is, again IMO, disingenuous.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 09:23 PM

You are so right, Spawzer....

There were many voices saying purdy much the same thing... I still have a very worm Malcome X poster that hung in my bedroom in the 60's...

I have spoke about Malcolm in the past and on other threads... He was the real deal... He would have made a big, big difference had he not been gunned down... A big difference... And he had a constituency that he could have brought with him who were more miliatant (in the wal that Dr. King defined it which I posted earlier) that would have made a major difference...

You know, I probably will get some heat for saying this but the big 3 assasinations were Malcolm, RFK and Dr, King... I know that folks just wanta put JFK into the mix but I never saw him as in the mix... To me it was Malcolm, RFK and Dr, King... Those were the crippling losses... Those three together would have changed the course of our history...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 11:06 PM

Thanks, Spaw, for posting the quotes and for your comments.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 11:14 PM

... Those three together would have changed the course of our history ...

They did. It just isn't done playing out yet.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:18 AM

I think you are reading things into my post that are not there, as well as ignoring what is there. The post is a simple recounting of the history of SNCC. I neither imply or intend any value judgement.   To the extent that you see that, it is your own projection, to which you have the right, and for which you have the responsibility.   

As you are well aware, you are also free to make whatever assumptions you choose to make regarding my thoughts regarding the MLK holiday, or Dr. King himself. In the interest of brevity, I will simply say that I don't view this as a competition, and that my interest and respect for Dr. King, as human and imperfect an individual as he was, extends beyond his role as a civil rights leader. I also do not have a tendency to mythologize him.   One can choose to view MLK day as deeply problematic, or can choose to view it as an opportunity. Either perspective is valid. I note, regarding the activities and learning opportunities to involve kids in learning and awareness about other civil rights issues and people of historical significancy, that you are treating it as an opportunity. My son's Quaker school does the same. Good on you!

'Spaw, I saw our post re: Malcolm X and have been cogitating about it. It lead me to do some hasty research about him. Thanks for posting it. While it has not been commented on, it has not been ignored by me. I doubt I am so unique that others are not doing the same.

I just deleted a ridiculously long post. The above is very incomplete. But the best i can do and stay brief.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 03:50 AM

OK, so can we get back to talking about Martin Luther King, Jr.?

I'm part of a team that teaches people who want to become Catholics. Monday night's topic was "sin." To begin the discussion, the priest had three of us do a dramatic reading of King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." I've read that piece many times, but it hit me a lot harder when I read it out loud. It's solid theology, and I was impressed to see a Baptist minister quoting Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. And whether you're a believer or not, it's a remarkable statement on justice, perhaps the most profound piece of writing that King produced.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 06:15 AM

"the most profound piece of writing that King produced"

Absolutely. Some of the most profound ANY American's produced, and one of the reasons I wish (younger) students had more opportunities to study his writings in more depth, rather than a one-day affair.

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 08:54 AM

No problemo there, Janie. I am, as usual, mildly amused at the knots people in this forum put their knickers in over anon posting.

I would like to clarify two things, and then stepping back here (we are getting quite circular in this discussion). First, I never do anything to dishonor King, I simply have strong feelings, working in public K12 education, about the effectiveness of the holiday. I base my opinion on working with kids day in and day out, in a poor, predominantly African American school (over 80%), and my colleagues who are just over 50% African American. We have one staff member who is African American who just flat out refuses to participate. Another who attended King's funeral. Some staff don't do much for MLK Day because they know it's ineffective, and focus instead on teaching African immigrant and African American arts, history, and cultures year round (my personal preference), like we are trying this year with the Serengeti migration.

Secondly, this whole non-violence business always trips my trigger. For one thing--how many people did the Black Panthers murder, exactly? Can any of the pacifist sorts here tell me that? Or actually, how many people did the black liberation movement of the 1960s murder?

Now, on the other hand, how many black activists were murdered by vigilantes, white paramilitaries, or government police?

It is far too easy to be a pacifist when the gun isn't being held to your head, or your house or church being firebombed or burned down with your family in it. That happened to HUNDREDS (if not thousands) of African American, American Indian, and Latino activists and their families in those days. So yeah, I'm real skeptical of white, middle class, neo-liberal pacifism. It's a belief system that seems on very shaky ground to me, considering it's a belief system that rarely gets tested harshly, like Stokely Carmichael's belief system was.

Finally, there are also a lot of white, middle class, neo-liberals who believe movements for political change should embrace pacifism as a belief system to make them (the middle class neo-liberals) feel more comfortable and at ease in ways that won't challenge their race advantages and the racial status quo. They flat out refuse to accept that it is perferctly legitimate for activists to use non-violence as a tactic/strategy, without being a pacifist or claiming the entire movement adheres to a Gandhian belief system.

Using non-violent direct action as a political tactic isn't the same thing as having a pacifist or Gandhian non-violent belief system. Condemning the entire black liberation movement for not adhering to the former, rather than the latter, is like condemning someone for not believing in religion.

People conveniently forget that the Gandhian principles of non-violence weren't effective in India. There are some who would argue they weren't effective here or in South Africa either, and that it was many other factors converging that eventually forced social changes--in India, for the worse as it turned out (civil war and partition).

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 09:02 AM

I have a dream of a 100th post

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 09:04 AM

Sorry, I meant to include this Wiki link to a page on non-violence. It's a pretty good, fairly concise explanation of what I'm trying to get at here.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 09:08 AM

Although our disagreements are legendary, I am completely with GUEST, GUEST on that last post. Pacifism, as a theory, is admirable and makes for some very nice stories. But the fact of the matter, in the various struggles using it, is that it is simply one tactic. Real pacifism, as the base on which one builds their struggle, is not practical and just gives the wolves the ability to run rampant. As a tactic, it can be effective or ineffective depending on how it (and other tactics) are used.

It seems to this activist, that sometimes folks get all hung up on the philosophy, and lose sight of the goal, which is to bring about change. To do so requires a willingness to put oneself at risk, and use the tactics necessary to gain the goal. And of course it goes without saying that one must be very careful that they don't lose themself in the fight and cross the line which separates decent folks from murderers.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 09:09 AM

He had a rare presence of mind in the most stressful situations.
I recall how Martin had the presence of mind to not pull a knife out of his chest when he was stabbed.

Crikey, If Steve Irwin had a similar presence of mind he might be alive today.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 09:19 AM

And you got it, Leadfinger--I'm envious of you realizing your dream so early in the day.

And to further clarify my own political philosophy--I've always been a non-violent resistance sort of gal, myself (if I were to use these Wiki definitions, that is), who has worked in solidarity with many a movement that advocated the use of armed struggle to achieve their people's political liberation. I personally have never advocated for armed struggle, as I don't believe it to be a more effective tactic than non-violent resistance, which I find has been most effective in 20th & 21st century politics.

In fact, I was thrilled yesterday to see Hamas blow out that wall! Now there was some mighty fine non-violent direct action, IMO. Nobody hurt, and the liberation was immediate--not to mention, a long time coming. So, while I am well aware of the gangster/criminal tactics of paramilitaries in areas of political turmoil, like Hamas, I also know their people also do a lot of really good work for their constituency. And I always ask myself first--what would I do if I was being held in an Israeli concentration camp and being deprived of life's basic necessities by a hostile military force that outguns me by a bazillion percent?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 10:58 AM

It ain't as much about pacifitism as much about logic and strategy... When the Black Panters decided that it was in their best interests to make it clear that the gun was going to be part of their image what they, in essence did, was invite agovernemtn that knows alot more about guns than they did to use excessive force against them... And this governemnt did just that...

I accept and embrace Dr. King's definiation of "militancy" as a behavior that is not based on "military" but of "demanding" that certain situations be corrected... That, to me, was what I felt we in the movement did well...

Fire bombing college buidings was a misguided strategy... To this day I'm not totally convinced that Hoover's boys weren't catalysts behind alot of the "violent" stuff... I know that "plants" were sent to Richmonmd and they were preachin' violence...

And I agree with GUEST,GUEST entirely on Hamas's actions yesterday... Okay, it took some explosives to pull it off but the act was non-violent and very much pro-human...

More Dr. King quotes later...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Peace
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 11:15 AM

The Ten-Point Program


We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine
The Destiny Of Our Black Community.
We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.

We Want Full Employment For Our People.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the White American businessmen will not give full employment, then the means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

We Want An End To The Robbery
By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The Germans are now aiding the Jews in Israel for the genocide of the Jewish people. The Germans murdered six million Jews. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people; therefore, we feel that this is a modest demand that we make.

We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.
We believe that if the White Landlords will not give decent housing to our Black community, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that our community, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.

We Want Education For Our People That Exposes
The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society.
We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History
And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If a man does not have knowledge of himself and his position in society and the world, then he has little chance to relate to anything else.

We Want All Black Men To Be Exempt From Military Service.
We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, by whatever means necessary.

We Want An Immediate End To
Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.
We believe we can end police brutality in our Black community by organizing Black self-defense groups that are dedicated to defending our Black community from racist police oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black people should arm themselves for self- defense.

We Want Freedom For All Black Men
Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails.
We believe that all Black people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial.

We Want All Black People When Brought To Trial To Be Tried In
Court By A Jury Of Their Peer Group Or People From Their Black
Communities, As Defined By The Constitution Of The United States.
We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the "average reasoning man" of the Black community.

We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education,
Clothing, Justice And Peace.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:31 PM

Bobert, first know that I don't question your credentials, your commitment, or your sincerity--ever. I do take exception to the way I felt you portrayed the 60s activists who turned to and/or joined the Black Panthers as a defensive strategy in the wake of James Meredith's shooting and the March Against Fear. There are always turning point events in these liberation struggles, and that event was a high water mark, at least in the south. You see the same thing in the north with Wounded Knee, in Northern Ireland with Bloody Sunday, etc etc The reality is, the murder campaigns by the government and their paramilitaries always ends up radicalizing the oppressed population, because the level of violence always reaches a breaking point where people have to fight back to defend themselves from the onslaught of violence. THAT is what Stokely Carmichael and SNCC did, IMO.

See, the problem I have with painting the 60s black liberation movements (there is always more than just one monolithic "movement" to be sure) with that same broad brush, as I felt you did, was that brush paints Stokely right out of the picture. That is wrong as hell in my view, and it happens A LOT these days with both black and white neo-liberals, some of whom were there at the time, like John Lewis. Stokely AND Martin finished the March Against Fear TOGETHER.

When Julian Bond was backed by Atlanta SNCC when running for mayor or whatever office he was running for then, and Atlanta SNCC came down hard on the black separatist side of the fence, firing the white SNCC members from the campaign, Stokely was initially very much opposed to those actions.

He was far more complex than most of the young leadership working in the south at the time--black or white. I just have never believed that in his heart, Stokely Carmichael every truly and genuinely embraced the black separtist movement philosophy. He began as an integrationist, believed in unity (in a unifed front sort of way, certainly), and ended up being more right than King. Integration didn't do the job. Desegragation and the repeal of Jim Crow laws didn't do the job. I don't know if Stokely was the first one to coin the term "institutional racism" but if he wasn't, he was certainly one of the most articulate spokespersons to address it from that era.

We are still living today with the legacy of institutional racism--that is the part that Kucinich and Edwards are trying to focus attention on with their campaigns. Intitutional racism IS the mainstream today. White people who never suffer from it just plain don't get it, and believe it simply doesn't exist--the 60s took care of all that. The same people are staunch defenders of the gender inequality status quo, claiming that "feminism" took care of all that. There is a saying that is always a dead give away on these things. Either they say "I'm not a feminist, but..." or "I'm not a racist, but..." That makes all the buzzers in my head go off.

And don't get all hot and bothered Bobert, because I'm not talking about you. But I probably am talking about some people here in Mudcat, I just don't know who because I don't know them and their politics (you are too up front with your politics not to know your heart, so it's pretty easy with you).

You see a lot of institutional discrimination in education especially, where affirmative action programs continue to focus on race to the exclusion of gender. Except this uber-conservative educational movement to "save" the African American male--and I work in one of those schools where the plan has been just that, at the expense of the African American girls. Affirmative action laws were passed to address both forms of institutional discrimination, and they aren't doing a very good job of addressing either, even here in the purple heartland of the formerly true blue state of Minnesota.

Last but not least, King's religiousity is a problem for me, as is much of the churchified orientation of the old school SCLC, NAACP type folks. I'm a secularist through and through, and have always resented the way we are portrayed by the high and mighty religious left moralizers, be they Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. That sort of highly moralistic tone merely lends succor to the right wing fundies backlash types. And look where cutting loose the secularists (especially the neo-liberal anti-feminists) in the post-60s era has gotten us--in a pretty fine fix.

One final thing. I have this theory that the white middle class neo-liberal denouncements of the post-60s radical left, and their embrace of status quo "moderate" political views is solely responsible for making the right wing backlash beginning with Reagan, including Bill Clinton (whom I view as being very right wing), right down to today's domination by the neo-cons, regain their stronghold in the US. In far too many ways, it seems to me, we are worse off today--in terms of winning the war against racism, poverty, and injustice--than we were in the 60s, and I fault the neo-liberals for not being vigilant and selling out the ideals of reformers of the New Left.

Neo-liberals, when history finally speaks of them from this era, will--IMO--be seen as having been active participants in the backlash movement against the 60s reformists, and the reforms of the New Deal of the 30s.

Right now, as a political force in the US, I don't think you can be any more regressive than being a so-called "moderate" of either the Democratic or Republican parties, or the party of the status quo--the growing and utterly complacent "independent middle".

The entire spectrum of human political history is littered with the remnants of regressive backsliding that wrecked peoples and nations for generations.

We've seen that happen in South Africa and the US. We've seen it happen in the Phillipines. We've seen it happen in Thailand and Cambodia. Across most of Africa and South America. You know we're screwed when China starts looking too good in comparison to us, you know?

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:57 PM

And oh hey--instead of re-reading King, go re-read Alinsky and listen to this and and this.

And then, start thinking all over again.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:50 PM

And lets not forget the Greensboro Massacure either, GUEST,GUEST or that the last known lynching of a black man also occured in the 60's... Yeah, it was a very violent decade be it here or in Southeast Asia... And then the '68 Democratic Convention really showed the ugly side...

And, yeah, when it came to big demostrations aginst racism or the Vietnam war, the divisions (which they weren't) between SNNC, SCLC, SOC and various independent radical groups (like Richmond's Radical Student Union) were non-existent... We all got it... Stokley got it... Julian Bond got it... Dr. King got it... Ben Spock got it... GUEST, GUEST got it... I sho nuff got it... That's the most important thing about the 60's... By 1969 almost everyone that was gonna get, got it...

It's kinds silly now, though, to rehash what went on as some kinda of competetition... I had tons of respect for Stokley... For Julian Bond... For Malcolm X...

I guess the only reason that I felt so close to SCLC is because my mother was involved with SCLC and I at least had contacts thru her as to what was happening... We didn't have SNNC or SCLC in Richmond... We did have SOC but the folks who staffed it weren't all that interested to doing much... I mean, a lot of it was regional and not ideaological... You organized what you could where you were and with the materials that were most readilly available...

Then there were the biggies... For us Richmonders that generally meant Washington, D.C. where the rallies would draw folks from all kinds of communities that had been organized under under different, but complimentary, organizations...

So, I'd just rather leave my thouhgts about competing interests as mythology rather than reality...

But, inspite of my dealings with the Panthers- which BTW had nothing to do with my anti-war organizing but anti-poverty organizing- yes, I was turned off by the images they crafted for themselves... They did too much good for all that be trumped by an image problem... Same with the White Panthers... These guys weren't at all peacefull... They wore violence on their sleeves.... I mean, it ain't like I was afraid to be with them but, maybe it was my new found peace of learning how Ghandi and King could change so much without violence, I was not comfortable around many of these folks... Not all, minnd you, but many... I must also confess that maybe the years have dampened my images of the WPP becuase I attended what was supposed to be a 3 or 4 day event in Ann Arbor, drove all night to get there, went to a concert the next night and got busted for no reason other than I was driving in the black neighborhood in a VW bug with a big peace sign painted on the back and spent two days and nights in a Detroit jail??? I donno???

(BTW, John Sinclair, as in "Free John Sinclair", is alive an well and has a radio show in Louisiana and has become quite the blues historian...)

Well, I am ***stuck*** in the library waitin' on my wife so no Dr. King quotes now but I'll fire up a couple tonight...

BTW, GUEST,GUEST... How 'bout firing up a few Stokey C's quotes... I just don't have much stuff on ol' Stokley...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:51 PM

Opps...

...100..

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 02:19 PM

Not a competition Bobert--erased. I don't like seeing the truth of history erased, and that is definitely what the MLK Day has become all about. Shit, look at the horse race! This year, mainstream media made MLK Day all about another chance to play their race card games.

Also, there was a definite gangster element with some of the Panthers, mostly the Oakland wing of the movement, as everyone knows. But all that gun shit was, for the most part, blustering that the mainstream media distorted and glorified. Things did get really strange around that time with all the movements. Same thing was happening in terms of the Weathermen. The mainstream media absolutely sucks at showing us the nuanced, developmental changes in people and the power structures, and at times like the 60s, that results in tremendous distortions of reality being beamed at us. How many Americans ever had one single personal encounter with an armed member of the Black Panther Party? I never did, despite them being active and around where I was in those days. But I was an anti-war activist and on the periphery of the civil rights movement in Chicago--at the intersection of the two groups. I kept my distance from most of them, but not all of them because some of them were really right on. Just like the SDS kids were. Kept my distance from the majority for sure (especially the Chicago headquarters of the SDS), but I used to hang and organize outside the city, so I never had much contact with all the "national organizers" who took over for awhile around the time of the '68 convention.

Stokely, in my opinion, eventually dissembled and went off his rocker with the whole moving to Africa, Marxist pan African thing, though he was always right on, straight on down the line, about the black middle class in the US. But then, he had some cultural distance, because certain groups in the black communities made sure he knew he would never be "one of them" because he was from Trinidad. I'm totally shooting from the hip here, but I think that ostracization may be what drove him out of the US.

That us vs you dynamic still plays itself out today. In front of me, it played out last year with Black History Month politics in my school, when an African American teacher from NYC told me our Afro-Caribbean principal wasn't "one of us". Bullshit, all of it, no matter what color, what ethnicity, what gender, what nationality, what EVER!

Peace out y'all--I GOTTA get back to work here!

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: PoppaGator
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 02:47 PM

Bobert: After living here in New Orleans for at least a decade, John Sinclair was displaced in the aftermath of Katrina and has only been back for visits since August '05. I'm not sure where he's living now, but I'd guess he's back in Detroit. I do know that there has been at least one farily recent "reunion" event featuring John with members of the MC5.

I can't say that I know him well, but we moved in the same circles and had a passing acquaintance. Our respective wives became closer friends than John and I (but then that's true in way too many cases!). He's a tremendously interesting guy, put together several excellent blues bands to accompany his poetry readings, ran a great radio program on WWOZ. We miss him.

Like me and a whole lot of folks, John Sinclair has become "less political" in these latter years ~ less explicitly political, anyway ~ but in his daily and in his cultural/musical endeavors, he certainly exemplifies and advances the same values as always.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 05:27 PM

Yeah, P-Gator, I've heard John Sinclairs band a couple time at Common Ground in Westminster, Ms, where John has been hired to conduct workshops... His band is real solid but not flashy but that really isn't what it's all about... He uses the band as background music as he goes into one of his poetic lectures about blues history... It ain't really singing 'casue John can't ing and it doesn't exactly rhyme... It's kind different but very entertaining and informative... The guy is a wealth of knowledge... Musta learnt it up during the 8 or so years he spent in the joint...

Ummmmm. GUEST, GUEST... Later I'm gonna talk a little about Stokley and Dr. King's reactions/reassessments to and about "Black Power"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 06:45 PM

Well, just for historical reference, in Greenwood, Ms. in 1964 at a NSSC rally attended my Dr. King, Stokley Carmicle dropped the "BlacK Power" bomb on Dr. KIng and even though Dr. King had immediate reservations about the term, he ponderd on it worker thru his initial reactions and in his book *Where Do We Go From Here" (1967) here are a few of his thoughts:

"First, it is necessary to understand that Black Power is a cry of disappointment... It is a cry of daily hurt and personal pain. For centuries the Negro has been caught in the tenticles of white power... Black Power is a reaction to the failure of white power.

Second, Balck Power, in its braod and positive meaning, is a call to black people to amass the political and econimic strength to achieve their legitamate goals. No one can deny that the Hegto is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of tyhe great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power...

Black power is also a call for the pooling of balck finacial resources to achieve economic security...

Finally, Black Power is a psychological call to manhood. For year the Negro has been taught that he is nobody, that his color is a sign of biological depravity, that his being has been stamped with indelible imprint of inferiority., that his whole history has been soiled with the filth of worthlessness. All too few people realize how slavery and racial segregation have scarred the soil and wounded the spirit of the black man. The whole dirty business of slavery was based on the premise that the Negro was a thing to be used, not a person to be respected..."

*****************************************************************

In Dr. KIng's ability to re-examine and to re-think the events of the 60's as they were unfolding, it is MHO that Dr. King has the capacity to stick with the truth on one hand while changing to the times on the other...

Yes, he was initailly shocked at by "Black Power" yet found a way to take the reality that Stokley Carmicle infused into the civil rights movement in Greenwood, Ms... and run with it...

This thread is about rmembering Dr. King and what he meant to the movement and I hope these quotes take I continue to share take the "Day" part out of MLK... It's not *a* day... It's *every* day...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 02:15 AM

Warning: Long-windedness ahead. I'll try to break it up into shorter posts.

I would suggest that pacifism is a broad and extremely nuanced concept, the exploration of which provides the individual and society a very difficult but rich opportunity to deal with the paradoxes and conflicts that are inherent in human interaction, whether one is talking about two individuals, the individual in relationship to the group, or the interactions between groups. To the extent a person has insight into themselves (i.e. to what extent has an individual is able to speak truth to their own power) then one can both arrive at one's own synthesis, and appreciate and accept as valid the different synthesis at which others might arrive. One can recognize the importance of ideals as well as the importance of pragmatism in shaping efforts geared toward either shaping or expressing the values, attitudes and actions of society. Whether an individual personally finds a synthesis toward the pragmatic end or toward the idealistic end of the continuum will depend an a number of interrelated variables that include but are certainly not limited to personality, life experience, values and the ranking of personal values, social learning (which includes all the elements involved with socialization within a cultural context, which includes the collective and historical experiences of the social group in which one is embedded,) and self-interest.

There are always both costs and benefits to choices we make.   There are always risks. While there may be intended consequences, there are always unintended consequences. Short term cost/benefit analyses tend to be more accurate. The further into the future one tries to project, the less reliable the cost/benefit analysis. Because values, goals, time-lines, and perceptions of self-interest vary, different individuals, and different groups will use different criteria when weighing costs and benefits, and within groups there will also be differences, some more nuanced than others.

Believe it or not, this line of thought has to do with racism, in particular, and social justice in general.

Subject: RE: BS: In Memory: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From: Janie
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 03:45 AM

Warning: More long-windedness.

As I read through this thread, one thing that strikes me is the diversity of perspectives among people who share some common values. Not one person has posted here to whom social justice is not an important issue. Not one post to this thread suggests the poster does not recognize, nor is concerned with the continued presence of racism in our society, or with issues of sociopolitical economic social justice. Still, we squabble, clarify, recap, etc.

I note this not as a chastisement, but as an observation. Gee. We be humans.

The wounds of past racism, the realities of current racism, and each of our own complex emotions tell the tale of the effects of racism on all of us as individuals and as a society.    It leads to the denial of racism, when racism is really operative. It leads to the perception of racism when racism is not operative. It impairs the faculty of discernment within the individual and within the group. Think of all the times that it is likely that both racism and projection of racism are present.   

I gotta go to bed. More later.

Maybe.

Peace and discernment to all,

Janie