King is more than a dream.
I sit here to write this forgetting that in my flurry of inspiration a couple of years ago, I had already written this piece about #ReclaimMLK (http://letterstoyoungworshippers.blogspot.com/2016/01/reflection-on-dr-king-in-era-of-post.html).
Dr. King, Jr. received his holiday fourteen years after his death and now thirty-two years ago. (We share a birth year in a way). I was furious back in 2016 (our last year with the first black president, even though I did not want to accept that fact). I was furious for so many valid reasons (Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have water and more officers have been acquitted or escaped charges.) I am still pissed about all those things. But, I am writing this the evening after our so-called president, 45, decided to call Haiti, African and African-Caribbean countries, “sh*tholes”. There is no more infuriating irony of this president, that he reveals his racism and racist political perspectives before key moments of black remembrance (see his comments about Frederick Douglass), the damn inescapable fact that 45 is going to stand and lay claim to the dream of King. He's going to lay his grubby, "sh*thole" hands on King's legacy. But, not only him, senators, representatives, governors, mayors, DA's are going to join in this bastard's chorus about the dream of King as they work to undermine black people's progress (But see, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-alford-kansas-marijuana-black-people_us_5a53e133e4b01e1a4b18a12b?section=us_black-voices).
I want our King back!! You can't claim Martin or Fannie Lou or Rosa or Ella or Billie or none of them until you see us as fully human and fully American!!
The third Monday of January, we set about remembering Dr. King, the drum major of a movement. But, let me tell you this, King was not the only one in the band for justice. He stood on the shoulders of a long legacy of men and women who bled, cried, died, were kidnapped, bombed, broken, beaten, sprayed with water hoses, lynched and so much more. King’s shadow is long and broad. His blood still cries out from the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis and still shakes the mantle of time nearly fifty years.
So, what do I have to say now? I am glad you asked. First, if you support the theology of Trump (looking at you all you charlatans of the gospel), you do not get to hold the legacy of MLK. If you support a theology that doesn't demand your own death to self for the cause of justice you CANNOT touch the legacy of MLK and our ancestors. This bodes the question, “What am I willing to do in this era to move the dream forward?” My answer is this, I am committed to radical compassion. Compassion places a target on your back because you are willing to take the hit for someone else. It is deeper than empathy...it is letting your heart break for someone else and then stepping up to do something.
King said it this way, “I choose to identify (yes, King had a choice—he was middle-class as a child) with the underprivileged, I choose to identify with the poor, I choose to give my life of the hungry, I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. […] This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way, because I heard a voice saying, “Do something for others.”
Second, I am committed the work. I am committed to digging into the chaos to fight of justice. I am committed to consolidating political power of black people and other people of color. I am committed to coalition building. Practically, from using the explosive event of the Black Panther premiere to register people to vote to elevate fresh and new candidates. This is the best birthday gift I can give to King on his 89th birthday. I am on the quest for justice and righteousness and “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.”
I am going to close with the words of Paul (2nd Corinthians 4:7-18):
7 Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary powerg may be from God and not from us. 8 We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; 9 we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. 10 We always carry the death of Jesush in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. 11 For we who live are always being given over to deathi for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. 13 And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke,B,j we also believe, and therefore speak. 14 For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesusk and present us with you. 15 Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgivingl to increase to the glory of God.
16 Therefore we do not give up.m Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner personn is being renewed day by day. 17 For our momentary light afflictiono is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.p 18 So we do not focus on what is seen,q but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Don’t give up, Don’t give in, Don’t stop dreaming the dream, your dream.
Ernest
