Still Dreaming
Yesterday marked the passing of the 38th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Like most of my peers, I grew up in a neighborhood that renamed itself with "Milky Ways." Down the street from the MLK boulevard (which used to be Grove Street), one can find the city's MLK junior high school. His face appears in city murals, parades, street signs, and school buildings. MLK is a myth for me, a symbolic figure who represents a time when people had to fight for their civil liberties. According to my elementary school history lessons, MLK is a hero who overcame and won what all African Americans deserved a long time ago: their rights.But as a panel held at Columbia two days ago asked, "How far are we from the dream?" The disaster of Hurricane Katrina has revealed that the economic and political rights of African Americans still remain pitiably disparate. And with the local New Orleans elections approaching, it is predicted that a sizable third - something under 200,000 people - of the New Orleans population (most of which are black) will probably not return. Or at least not anytime soon because of their financial situation. While there is a scramble to establish a system of absentee voting, the turnout for the displaced Hurricane victims is predicted to be troublesome. On a national level, this has startling consequences. Louisiana is a southern state that has always swung blue, thanks to its large and active black population. But the displacement and terrible mismanagement of the rebuilding and recovery efforts have allowed a powerful voting force to disperse. If the New Orleans racial demographics remain the way they do now, it will hardly be a shock when Louisiana turns red.
What many people forget when remembering MLK is his comprehensive understanding of injustice. That is to say, the problems that face African-Americans have no single solution. As a leader, MLK understood black injustice much more thoroughly than classroom history gives him credit. His support for labor movements and economic justice has been greatly ignored, and his activism in other arenas of American politics (he spoke against the Vietnam War) was just as strong and passionate. As another year passes him into history, we must not use him as a tool to gloss over the past. He does not represent a total victory. Nor must he be appropriated by the very people (this past year President Bush spoke at the funeral of Coretta Scott King) that dismantle the social, political, and economic rights of African Americans and other minorities today.
posted by Thessaly | 12:27 AM
5 Comments:
Really interesting post. I was just reading Kozol's "Savage Inequalities." A white middle-class teacher with a conscience went and taught and seriously inner-city schools for a number of years. When he was in E. St. Louis, every time MLK's name came up, students just started laughing. So MLK, dream or myth? He certainly effected political change during his lifetime. But his image since has been appropriated and domesticated: his dream is no longer a threat, just a myth.
Ah, I barely remember that book, but it was one of my favorites in highschool and tremendously influencial. But that's a good point, perhaps there are people who realize the facade of MLK much more deeply than you or I do.
I think the main issue is that within history, figures become spaces of contestation for different groups. And that by ignoring certain elements of his past, we allow his appropriation to turn him into a myth. Both Eric Foner and Manning Marable (two prominent speakers of the panel) mentioned how tired they were of his, "I have a dream" speech because it detracts from the greater scope of King's aims. We shouldn't consign ourselves to this myth, because it is limiting. The moment we limit ourselves, we've lost grip on achieving our ideals.
Along these lines, I recall someone mentioning that it is highly problematic of us to turn leaders like King into heros, because it makes us ignore contemporary problems. (Another example for me would be Cesar Chavez and the rights of Latin American immigrants.)
Also, as a complete aside (or unless someone sees how this can be tied together): someone else pointed out to me regarding this post that King was not the greatest with women, and that his movement left little manuverability for women and their voices. This should be emphasized too.
Violent or untimely death changes everything. I think it's the martyrdom that makes the myth even more removed from reality, that fades the flaws and reduces human lives to postage stamp icons. It's like some kind of alchemical nuclear transmutation where a certain amount of historical truth is converted into pure resonant teleological energy. It's a charismatic supernova. Maybe sacrifice occurs on many levels to effect change, and when it does, the result has both an echo and a shadow echo.
Not that martyrdom is required for myth but when a hero is killed for their beliefs it becomes taboo to criticize or imitate them too closely. Their legacy is frozen between 'respect for the dead' and fear of being killed, even as the legacy of what they represented in the abstract achieves a kind of ersatz immortality.
yes, and that's a problem because their image works distinctly against the goals they tried to achieve during their lifetime.
Also, for those interested in more, this is a great site from Stanford dedicated to the history and relevancy of King today:
The King Center
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