Martin Luther King and Human Rights
13 January 2007
When Martin Luther King Jr scrawled on scratch paper and toilet paper his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, do you think he knew he was changing the way we see human rights? He sat there, maybe by candlelight, daylight or in darkness, writing one of the most powerful pieces of prose in American history, not to those who were oppressing him and the people for which his struggle carried, but to his colleagues, his peers. MLK was writing to the clergy, the pastors and other men of the cloth with whom he worked with and thought he struggled with. It was a letter condemning their inaction and their faults in the movement.
MLK, in one form or another, was always wondering out loud or in writing why good people remained silent in the face of vitriolic evil. He wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” It is not enough to know that there is evil and hateful actions going on; if you are not doing anything to prevent or stop it, when you know it exists, you are as much at fault as the perpetrator.
When we look at various human rights struggles today, we are caught in the grasp of our own self-love. To be able to talk about gender-based violence, orphans on the street, torture-victims, ethnic cleansing, HIV/AIDS, the denial (or poor quality) of education, etc in a classroom, around an office table or in a home is one thing, but since we know these things are going on, are we not at fault if we are not taking an active role in alleviating their causes and consequences? I am as much at fault as anyone in failing to act.
I have attempted to emulate and live the words of MLK for years (not just the ones above, but almost anything he said or did), but I have not acted, nor is what I could ever do enough. Self-righteousness and the hope that I could matter chased me to Rwanda, but the same questions of human rights and peacebuilding that irk me here, irked me just as much back in America—where we often live with the fallacy that progress is being made in the ways and means of social justice and human rights. What progress have we made? MLK, who would be a young 78 this year, departed almost forty years ago; Malcolm X has been gone for over forty years, along with Gandhi and Fanon; Ms. Parks and Ms. King left us in the last couple of years and Nelson Mandela may soon come to pass. It no longer works in the information super-age to be dependent on these kinds of mortals becoming our living prophets and then deceased martyrs.
It does not make sense to wait around for the next prophet to come along. Our actions—beyond our words, thoughts and interpretations—need to push the boundaries of those individuals, groups, institutes, systems and states that commit daily human rights violations. In America, 39 years after MLK’s ascent, we have racist, vitriolic institutions (the justice and education system to name a couple)—as well as a divisive, war-mongering, bigoted, sexist, globally warming administration. What have we learned from MLK and his letter to his peers? It does not seem like much, when you have seven and eight year olds in struggling schools in Harlem being asked to take standardized tests and forego their history and art lessons, at the same time as seven and eight year olds in Beverly Hills get to take those art lessons and play their weekend soccer (instead of having to go to class on Saturday’s to make up for what went wrong during the week). What progress have we made when residents throughout the American South are still not allowed the right of return almost a year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita? Turned on its head and looking beyond on American shores: we are bombing and killing civilians in, amongst other places Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia (what, you say, Somalia again? Yes, under the auspices of “searching out Al-Qaeda operatives,” or in other words, “people who are in the way of our access to oil and resources)—but notably not Darfur or Sudan where genocide is happening.
MLK was just starting to speak out against the war in Vietnam and the socio-economic conditions of Blacks and poor Whites, not only in the south but also throughout the country (when immortalized in Memphis he was about to march with the Sanitation Workers Union). In his wake, we are seeing human rights atrocities perpetuated on grand and minimal scales, in direct and indirect ways, using the most grandiose, sublime or mundane methods. How come, when we talk about human rights abuses or the problems of the “inner-city” we are quick to “other” the victims? I must go to Rwanda to work on human rights and peacebuilding, or I must go to Watts to talk about socio-economic problems. Why? Why aren’t we taking action upon those that have the socio-politico-economic upward mobility? Are we designing workshops for upper-middle class White kids in the suburbs or exurbs on poverty and sexual abuse? Not enough, because we have relegated those problems to the areas of our countries, communities and globe that we feel the most disconnected from and most guilty about. On the other hand, some use the relative wealth, privilege and knowledge we have (yes, me shamelessly included) to put ourselves in the position of being learners from those people, places, and situations completely unlike our own. MLK came from privilege, and he came with knowledge. He had a middle-class upbringing and a doctorate, but in the end he was Black—therefore he was a threat to the systems of oppression and repression. But he put himself out there, both for self-love and for love of the potential of humankind.
What am I doing? I have lived and breathed Rwanda for a little while now, and my questions of my role here and elsewhere (namely, America) craze my thoughts day and night. Rwanda has moved “forward” in the last few years, but falsities persist. The want of being all “Rwandans” here is akin to W. Bush mis-reinterpreting MLK’s ideal for a “colorblind” society (on the eve of the University of Michigan Affirmative Action case a few years ago). How can all people be “Rwandans,” when they are still labeled as “survivors,” “returnees,” “reintegrated,” “perpetrators,” or “bystanders” which inherently marks them Hutu or Tutsi? Just like in America, how can we be colorblind if our penitentiary’s are disproportionately Blacks and other “minorities,” our run-down, urban neighbourhoods are innately not White, and our basketball players are Black and the people that sit in the front paying $500 to watch them are White? I am not convinced of this “colorblind-ness.” My brother is colorblind—but that just means his green turtles come out brown, red and gray, not blank and colorless.
Rwanda is building peace and human rights through symbols. There are proportionately more women in elected and appointed positions than anywhere else in the world and there is a new “mall” downtown (which, by the way, had not even begun to be built when I was here last year—while other more “useful” looking structures are half-built and probably have not been touched in years). As well, development aid comes in by the hoards, there are trash bins in the centre of town (though unlabeled and too high for most people to reach), and there are roundabouts with elaborate water fountains and well-groomed lawns (not to be walked on or near, of course). But in closer examination: there are street-children a plenty, women with facial bruises, invisible girls while the boys play, children selling items on the street during school hours, and in the rural areas, the gorgeous mountains are terraced all the way to their scintillating summits, agricultural labour is exploited, visible signs of illness and malnourishment are apparent in many and girls with jericans of water and wood on their heads are everywhere (yes, during school hours). Symbols are not enough.
On the eve of MLK’s birthday—my only practicing holiday of the year, no offense—there is still way too much to be done, in America and elsewhere (and yes, that was an America-centric statement). Every year, at MLK Day celebrations around the US, speakers, students, activists and others always say there is still more to be done. When will we all put ourselves out of work by having no more to do in the way of human rights and social justice? As people whom supposedly “know” or “care,” what more do we have to do to be unemployable (our services as people interested and active in peacebuilding and/or human rights no longer being necessary)?
Stuck in his prison cell, MLK knew his roll in the makings of a better world—the world in which we are still striving for today. Having everyday his human rights violated, MLK knew a different approach needed to be taken. He revolutionized struggle, while revolutionizing compassion, non-violence and love. Martin Luther King Jr was thinking and speaking for us when he wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
When Martin Luther King Jr scrawled on scratch paper and toilet paper his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, do you think he knew he was changing the way we see human rights? He sat there, maybe by candlelight, daylight or in darkness, writing one of the most powerful pieces of prose in American history, not to those who were oppressing him and the people for which his struggle carried, but to his colleagues, his peers. MLK was writing to the clergy, the pastors and other men of the cloth with whom he worked with and thought he struggled with. It was a letter condemning their inaction and their faults in the movement.
MLK, in one form or another, was always wondering out loud or in writing why good people remained silent in the face of vitriolic evil. He wrote, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” It is not enough to know that there is evil and hateful actions going on; if you are not doing anything to prevent or stop it, when you know it exists, you are as much at fault as the perpetrator.
When we look at various human rights struggles today, we are caught in the grasp of our own self-love. To be able to talk about gender-based violence, orphans on the street, torture-victims, ethnic cleansing, HIV/AIDS, the denial (or poor quality) of education, etc in a classroom, around an office table or in a home is one thing, but since we know these things are going on, are we not at fault if we are not taking an active role in alleviating their causes and consequences? I am as much at fault as anyone in failing to act.
I have attempted to emulate and live the words of MLK for years (not just the ones above, but almost anything he said or did), but I have not acted, nor is what I could ever do enough. Self-righteousness and the hope that I could matter chased me to Rwanda, but the same questions of human rights and peacebuilding that irk me here, irked me just as much back in America—where we often live with the fallacy that progress is being made in the ways and means of social justice and human rights. What progress have we made? MLK, who would be a young 78 this year, departed almost forty years ago; Malcolm X has been gone for over forty years, along with Gandhi and Fanon; Ms. Parks and Ms. King left us in the last couple of years and Nelson Mandela may soon come to pass. It no longer works in the information super-age to be dependent on these kinds of mortals becoming our living prophets and then deceased martyrs.
It does not make sense to wait around for the next prophet to come along. Our actions—beyond our words, thoughts and interpretations—need to push the boundaries of those individuals, groups, institutes, systems and states that commit daily human rights violations. In America, 39 years after MLK’s ascent, we have racist, vitriolic institutions (the justice and education system to name a couple)—as well as a divisive, war-mongering, bigoted, sexist, globally warming administration. What have we learned from MLK and his letter to his peers? It does not seem like much, when you have seven and eight year olds in struggling schools in Harlem being asked to take standardized tests and forego their history and art lessons, at the same time as seven and eight year olds in Beverly Hills get to take those art lessons and play their weekend soccer (instead of having to go to class on Saturday’s to make up for what went wrong during the week). What progress have we made when residents throughout the American South are still not allowed the right of return almost a year and a half after Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita? Turned on its head and looking beyond on American shores: we are bombing and killing civilians in, amongst other places Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia (what, you say, Somalia again? Yes, under the auspices of “searching out Al-Qaeda operatives,” or in other words, “people who are in the way of our access to oil and resources)—but notably not Darfur or Sudan where genocide is happening.
MLK was just starting to speak out against the war in Vietnam and the socio-economic conditions of Blacks and poor Whites, not only in the south but also throughout the country (when immortalized in Memphis he was about to march with the Sanitation Workers Union). In his wake, we are seeing human rights atrocities perpetuated on grand and minimal scales, in direct and indirect ways, using the most grandiose, sublime or mundane methods. How come, when we talk about human rights abuses or the problems of the “inner-city” we are quick to “other” the victims? I must go to Rwanda to work on human rights and peacebuilding, or I must go to Watts to talk about socio-economic problems. Why? Why aren’t we taking action upon those that have the socio-politico-economic upward mobility? Are we designing workshops for upper-middle class White kids in the suburbs or exurbs on poverty and sexual abuse? Not enough, because we have relegated those problems to the areas of our countries, communities and globe that we feel the most disconnected from and most guilty about. On the other hand, some use the relative wealth, privilege and knowledge we have (yes, me shamelessly included) to put ourselves in the position of being learners from those people, places, and situations completely unlike our own. MLK came from privilege, and he came with knowledge. He had a middle-class upbringing and a doctorate, but in the end he was Black—therefore he was a threat to the systems of oppression and repression. But he put himself out there, both for self-love and for love of the potential of humankind.
What am I doing? I have lived and breathed Rwanda for a little while now, and my questions of my role here and elsewhere (namely, America) craze my thoughts day and night. Rwanda has moved “forward” in the last few years, but falsities persist. The want of being all “Rwandans” here is akin to W. Bush mis-reinterpreting MLK’s ideal for a “colorblind” society (on the eve of the University of Michigan Affirmative Action case a few years ago). How can all people be “Rwandans,” when they are still labeled as “survivors,” “returnees,” “reintegrated,” “perpetrators,” or “bystanders” which inherently marks them Hutu or Tutsi? Just like in America, how can we be colorblind if our penitentiary’s are disproportionately Blacks and other “minorities,” our run-down, urban neighbourhoods are innately not White, and our basketball players are Black and the people that sit in the front paying $500 to watch them are White? I am not convinced of this “colorblind-ness.” My brother is colorblind—but that just means his green turtles come out brown, red and gray, not blank and colorless.
Rwanda is building peace and human rights through symbols. There are proportionately more women in elected and appointed positions than anywhere else in the world and there is a new “mall” downtown (which, by the way, had not even begun to be built when I was here last year—while other more “useful” looking structures are half-built and probably have not been touched in years). As well, development aid comes in by the hoards, there are trash bins in the centre of town (though unlabeled and too high for most people to reach), and there are roundabouts with elaborate water fountains and well-groomed lawns (not to be walked on or near, of course). But in closer examination: there are street-children a plenty, women with facial bruises, invisible girls while the boys play, children selling items on the street during school hours, and in the rural areas, the gorgeous mountains are terraced all the way to their scintillating summits, agricultural labour is exploited, visible signs of illness and malnourishment are apparent in many and girls with jericans of water and wood on their heads are everywhere (yes, during school hours). Symbols are not enough.
On the eve of MLK’s birthday—my only practicing holiday of the year, no offense—there is still way too much to be done, in America and elsewhere (and yes, that was an America-centric statement). Every year, at MLK Day celebrations around the US, speakers, students, activists and others always say there is still more to be done. When will we all put ourselves out of work by having no more to do in the way of human rights and social justice? As people whom supposedly “know” or “care,” what more do we have to do to be unemployable (our services as people interested and active in peacebuilding and/or human rights no longer being necessary)?
Stuck in his prison cell, MLK knew his roll in the makings of a better world—the world in which we are still striving for today. Having everyday his human rights violated, MLK knew a different approach needed to be taken. He revolutionized struggle, while revolutionizing compassion, non-violence and love. Martin Luther King Jr was thinking and speaking for us when he wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
posted by Jed at 11:47 PM
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