Iowa Caucus MLK Day Thoughts

There's an irony to the Republican Party holding their first caucus on Martin Luther King Day. On the day we honor a man who demanded that the nation live up to its oft-proclaimed ideals of freedom and justice, we are seeing a wannabe dictator whose slogan is about reversing this country's gains since MLK's times about to trounce his opponents. Nikki Haley, who is supposed to be the "moderate" alternative, is a South Carolina conservative who refused to name slavery as a cause of the Civil War. The "party of Lincoln" has become the inheritor of the Lost Cause and is the political home of the people who fought so hard to stop the civil rights movement. 

This sadly should come as no surprise. King is so universally admired and claimed today that it is hard to know that he was a controversial figure in his lifetime. The FBI had him surveilled and used that information to blackmail him and in 1966 only 27% of white Americans said they had a positive view of MLK. Those people's political children (and hell some of the original bigots are still alive) are Trump's base. 

It's also hard to remember there was a time when King even getting a holiday was controversial. Jesse Helms, the avatar of Southern white racist migration from the Democratic to the Republican Party, tried to filibuster the bill establishing the day. Ronald Reagan, president at the time, implied in his public statements that he was holding his nose and voting for the holiday out of political considerations, rather than his own convictions. Some states like Arizona did not recognize the holiday (as Public Enemy famously denounced) while others used the day to celebrate both King and Confederates. Alabama and Mississippi still celebrate King and Lee's birthday on this day. 

Eric Foner called Reconstruction "America's Unfinished Revolution," and Dr King's efforts were part of a Second Reconstruction that also remains unfinished. The spectacle of Republican candidates clamoring to show their opposition to birthright citizenship and their support of banning Black history in schools is proof of this (if we still needed any.) While it might be depressing to face these facts 56 years after King's death, I want to use this day as a call to action. His death and the deaths of so many others who fought for equality should not be in vain. It's up to us to carry on their legacy and vindicate them. If anything else, the spectacle in Iowa today is a reminder of the stakes. 

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. 

Standing At The Crossroads On MLK Day

This MLK Day I see a nation standing at the crossroads.  The horrible deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and too many other people of color at the hands of the police have prompted the biggest protests against racism that I have seen in my lifetime.  Also for the first time in my life, the creeping hand of the prison-industrial complex is being challenged, and those challenges are beginning to get broader traction.  At the same time, hardline conservatives have taken over Congress and an unprecedented number of statehouses, benefitting from white backlash and racial resentment in the process.  The mayor of New York dares to discuss the reality of racist policing, and is met with unprecedented revolt and disrespect from his officers.  Something will have to give.

Lots of people are going to see reenactments of the Selma March in the theaters right now, but the present is just as crucial as the past.  There is a growing recognition, one pretty obvious for people of color, much less so for whites, that the efforts of Dr. King and others in the 1960s were not the end of the story, but the beginning.  Barack Obama's election was supposed to be proof of a "post-racial" society, when in reality the hateful reception he has received in many quarters has proven rather starkly that such claims of a post-racial nation were completely wrong.

Will that knowledge be acted upon?  Will new change come?  I honestly don't know, but what I do know is that I cannot remember a time in my life when the possibility for racism to be pushed back was this palpable.  I know plenty of young people who are getting conscious, getting active and taking to the streets, and they give me the hope that the legacy of Dr. King will not be one of greeting card sentiments, but as an inspiration for future generations to further the work he began.