Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
National holidays are mostly abstract. Even the 4th Of July, as tactile as it is. The national anthem is a difficult, bizarre piece of music, and underscores how vast a gulf there is between our times and the world back then. Hardly seems like the same place at all.
MLK Day is a difficult holiday for some. Within my lifetime, some states have resisted the very idea of the holiday. The opposition to the holiday seems so odious that one avoids the subject altogether, fearful that some of the mud will splash onto us.
The events of 2014 are reminders that gulfs exist between the races. Racial profiling by law enforcement seems an obvious fact of life. One wonders how could it not exist? Individuals belong to groups, and groups have demographic characteristics that are materially manifest in the most conspicuous ways, such as fashion.
Much debate goes on about who is racist and how they are racist. I’ve wondered a lot about what entails racism, and how and why it occurs.
One has a negative perception of a community inasmuch as one primarily identifies a group by a negative characteristic.
I grew up in a city well-known as wealthier than surrounding cities, as a city infamous for conspicuous consumption. There was some truth behind the perception. The city has extravagant shopping malls, and every citizen was guilty by association of the conspicuous consumption practiced by those mall shoppers. We were reluctant to say where we lived, because we knew we would be considered to be a type of people we were not.
One hears about a group of people notorious as thieves. Cher had a big hit with a particular song: “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.” Well-meaning as it might have been, what most impressed itself on an impressionable young mind is that people think Gypsies are thieves, and if all these people think that– why would they, if there was not some truth to it?
Italians suffer the perception that they have something to do with the Mafia. People think the Irish are inordinately fond of liquor, and if we think Vietnamese people, with all the pho soup restaurants hereabouts, really love pho soup, with all the Irish bars, it’s hard not to think the Irish don’t really like spending a lot of time drinking in pubs. (Some people think that’s a bad thing.)
Blacks in the United States suffer the curse of slavery. When I think on their situation in the US today, I think one has to go back to slavery, because that’s how they got here. That’s why they were, against their wills, brought here. It’s impossible to not think about that and wonder how it was ever morally permissible. One thinks about how and why that happened, and what were the enduring consequences. As a white person, I have to think that a history such as that needs a few centuries to fade into the background and not be a major, unhealthy factor in the community psyche. In the history of humanity, 100 years, 200 years is about as recent as yesterday. And still we have debates over civil rights, discrimination, voting rights, cities with black majorities and white police forces.
I have Irish and Jewish blood. I see the Jews as a people who will always be held suspect. When a group of people has been reviled by so many for so long, it’s all too easy to think, “There must be a reason why people have thought that,” and then latch onto a few self-serving anecdotes as proof that they are guilty of whatever they happen to have been charged with, or are being charged with.
It’s easier to think of people as belonging to groups who can be dealt with in terms of stereotypes. People even think of themselves as stereotypes, when convenient. “I’m a man, so I leave the toilet seat down.” “I’m white, so I don’t have to worry about mistreatment by the police.”
Few things offend people more than being labeled as a type, whether it’s according to something relatively superficial, such as the city where where one grew up, or something more substantial, such as skin color and gender.
We belong to bigger communities: we are brothers and sisters; each others’ keepers; children of God; citizens of Earth. As human beings, to follow the heroic, unimaginable courage and bravery and most excellent example of Dr. King, and promote those overarching realities, is our responsibility and high calling.