Martin Luther King and my kids at Eisenhower...
Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday...
So the school announcements, today, reminded students that we would not have school on Monday in honor of the holiday...
And I thought, this morning...
Martin Luther King gave his life in the cause of civil rights and efforts to end poverty (King was killed in Memphis while organizing trash workers)...
The least we can do is take some time in class to discuss his legacy...
Much of grad school, for me, and my time with Brandi, was spent studying and living in the spirit of the civil rights movement...Theo Brown, Brandi's mentor and my mentor-by-proxy, was an old civil rights activist from back in the day...RESULTS, the group to which I belong and which belonged to with me while we were dating, was a poverty group very much in the spirit of the civil rights movement...I read everything by and about Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and the civil rights movement that I could while I was in grad school...Taylor Branch's books -- Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and the newest one, At Canaan's Edge -- are all brilliant, in-depth discussions of King's legacy and the legacy of the civil rights movement in the United States...
So Martin Luther King and civil rights mean a lot to me...
But apparently not so much to my kids...
None of my kids could even tell us who Martin Luther King was (even though well over half of my kids are African American)...
And as I spent some time talking about Martin Luther King's legacy and the legacy of the modern, more successful civil rights movements after 100 years post-slavery of segregation and denial of those same rights...
Some of the kids...tragically...just didn't seem to care...
My most trying student commented about King's assassination...
"That was him. That's not me."
So sad...and callous...
Especially so since this student is black...
Meaning...King lost his life in the cause of making sure that this kid could be in my class...and be treated equally to his white peers...
And all this kid can say is...
"That was him. That's not me."
So terribly sad and pathetic, I thought...
Even sadder that this philosophy animates many Americans as much as anything King led with...
Last year...I tried to volunteer at Lawrence's local Good Will to commemorate the King holiday (I got turned away when they couldn't find anything for me to do)...
This year...I'm going to do more, I think...
There's some celebrations on Saturday and Monday, here in Kansas City and in Lawrence...and the only church I've regularly attended in Lawrence is a black Baptist church...the Ninth Street Baptist Church (I love the humility in that kind of name:):):)...the ordinariness of it:):):)...I'm sure they'll have something going on...
And I want to volunteer in the spirit of the King holiday somewhere this year...perhaps the Motorcade for Hunger here in Kansas City on Monday...
Brandi's the only other person I've met -- including my black friends -- who got as excited around civil rights and the King holiday as I have...
But this year...this holiday has a lot more significance to me...
This year...
The King holiday is a reminder to me of just how rare greatness and self-sacrafice is...in a world where most people consistently settle for mediocre...
And a reminder to me...of all the excuses that had to be overcome...and still overcome...on race matters...for us to make as much progress as we've made on them...
And how many of those same excuses will have to be overcome...to make progress on so many issues that seem so fundamental to humanity's growth and learning...
The openness that is necessary for people -- including and especially themselves -- to allow others to see their lowest, basest instincts...racism, greed, and all the rest...
So that they can let them go...
And actualize their highest selves...rather than just aspiring for them without ever getting there...
Thank you, Martin, for making so much of the world that is available to us, today, possible...
Whether or not kids and adults, today, take that legacy for granted...
Love,
Ben
