MLK Day Reflections

Every year I treat Martin Luther King Day as a time to reflect on the nation's path. Are we closer to or straying more from the society that he demanded that America become? It's an especially difficult evaluation this year because I have probably never seen hope and despair so mixed.

Last spring and summer saw the biggest mobilization for social justice in this country in over fifty years. While that fire has faded, it has forced multiple powerful people and institutions to critically re-examine themselves. It has also mainstreamed critiques of policing and the justice system that used to be shut out of regular American political discourse. As a teacher I can see that this cohort of youth is by far the most committed to change I have seen in my twenty years in the classroom.

At the same time, white supremacists invaded and briefly held the Capitol. In most places little to nothing was done to rein it in the police. In fact, many off-duty cops were in the fascist mob trying to overthrow the government. In terms of the pandemic, it has taken a far higher toll among Blacks and Hispanics and poor people of all races. 

The mob marched on the Capitol in order to overturn an election that they interpreted as a threat to white supremacy (and Christian and male supremacy for a lot of the people there too). It is not the first time in our country's history that such a thing has happened. At least for the first time in my adult life the head shaking of "this is not who we are" no longer dispels the notion that something deep and fundamental must be changed about this country. 

It is fitting then that one one the new Senators is Raphael Warnock, pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where MLK and his father preached. I've been lucky enough to go to the historical church more than once and listen to recordings of sermons as I sat in the pews in the same place where they were given. There is a spirit that still hangs in the air there. Last time I visited and thought about the need to keep the faith against the powerful doubts that can drown a soul in cynicism.

I am thinking about that again today. In the time since my last visit in the summer of 2019 a lot of terrible things have happened. But as bad as the damage is, we have the capacity to recover. I look with hope to inauguration day, the spread of the vaccine, and most of all the fighting spirit in the streets back in the spring and summer of 2020. We sure are going to need it.