January 15, 2018

What Has Happened to King's Dream?

Fifty years ago, today, Martin Luther King Jr. celebrated his final birthday. Seventy-four days later, Walter Cronkite would tell the nation: "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the apostle of non-violence in the civil rights movement, has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee." 

On the night of King’s assassination, presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy broke the news to shocked supporters in Indiana, suggesting, "In this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in."

How would America answer Kennedy?

There will be no shortage of discussion about King’s legacy today and in the coming 74 days as we approach the anniversary of his murder. Most of it will likely focus on "how far we've come" in the past half century and we will be treated to replay after replay of his soaring rhetoric - left captivated by his mastery of charismatic cadence. 

 And there will be the predictable backlash of screed warning us not to pay tribute to this false prophet, reminding us of "evidence" that King was a womanizer and unworthy to wag his "holier-than-thou" finger at anyone - let alone white America. 

He will be characterized as a provocateur who used extreme tactics to incite violent response. To an extent, that's true.
 
​King's civil right's victory in Birmingham, Alabama was won by not only provoking a violent response from Bull Conor, it took on national and historic significance because it was school kids who were being beaten and jailed. In a letter he penned in a Birmingham cell, King made his mission clear, "We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

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It's important to remember that King's purpose and tactics were deeply divisive in the U.S. – north and south. Barely one in three Americans held a favourable view of King after Birmingham. Fewer than one in four supported King's call for the August 1963 civil right's rally in Washington. There are reports that Nikita Khrusshchev, leader of the Soviet Union and the arch villain in the Cuban Missile Crisis, was the only man Americans disliked more than King.

He set out to magnify the problems and nothing sharpened the focus of attention better than violence. For the record, it's a tactic that's not dissimilar to protests and demonstrations staged by Black Lives Matters. 

But rather than getting caught up in selective debates over King's cultural canonization we should turn to Kennedy’s question and focus the discussion on the here and now. It's been nearly 55 years since King told the world he dreamed of a nation where his "children would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character." 

On this Martin Luther King Day, the world echoes Kennedy’s question. What kind of a nation is the United States in 2018? What direction has it taken since April 4, 1968? What has happened to King's dream?

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The immediate response, the easier response, would be to consider the answer through a racilized lens and compare the "plight of the Negro" in 1968 to the privileges and protections enjoyed by black Americans in this new millennium.

But how is it that a country that finally elected its first black President in 2008 has given rise to Black Lives Matter in 2013?

I was in Washington, DC the day Barak Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States on January 20th, 2009. Surely, he was the test, if not the fulfillment of King's dream. The country was focused on the content of his character. Right? That was certainly the narrative of the day.  

Nine years later, the U.S. is more divided, racial tensions are more pronounced - in large part because the current White House fails to denounce racists and the current president delights in characterizing nations with black populations as “shithole countries.” 

Even in the face of obvious “improvements” since 1968, it is clear that racial tensions and inequality are at the heart of a long list of recent, violent conflicts. We need only mention names of US towns like Ferguson, Charlottesville, Charleston, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Charlotte, N.C., et al, as recent examples to recall the depths of anger and tragic outcomes.

America may be angrier today than it has been since the days of King, Viet Nam and Watergate.  
The difference is today's extreme voices on the fringe have become normalized. Moderate, thoughtful leadership is dismissed as the established elite. Vile lies spewed from digital bully pulpits shout down a mainstream media that is nearly inept - suffering from a combination of laziness and a lack of resource. The news media was never properly equipped or prepared in the past 15 years to witness the world changing in front of its own eyes.

Unlike the Freedom Riders of the 60's that included blacks and whites together, the demonstrators in this day and age are either black or they are white. They keep to themselves. They demonstrate, they protest for themselves. They shout for themselves.  
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At best, the underlying reasons are complicated. At worst, they're inexplicable. The problems exist at a very deep level and may well run deeper than the willful ignorance of racism and discrimination. 
It's the companion and present evils of poverty, illiteracy, insecurity, injustice, institutional abuse, systemic disadvantage, social rejection and manufactured scarcity that make America angry. 
Blacks are angry. Whites are angry. It's the lowest common denominator. 

Fifty years after Martin Luther King was murdered in an act of racism, it is still a “difficult time for the United States.” It remains a time of darkness. In Strength to Love, King wrote: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."
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Who will be the light?