The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
(Re)Claiming the Radical Vision of Dr. King
Soon the airwaves will resound with looping excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This is the time of year when the scheming Haves encourage the Have Nots to keep on dreaming. January should be about respecting and protecting the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. It is in this spirit that I invoke — not a dreamin’ King — but an impatient leader of the civil rights movement in 1963.
This country likes to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King on his birthday, but not walk the walk the rest of the year. By the time Dr. King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech before the Washington, D.C. gathering, he had already summed up white America’s passive-aggressive approach towards full citizenship of African Americans. He called it out using the powerful metaphor of the bounced check. That sucka is still bouncing in 2023. Seventy years after the height of Dr. King’s non-violent movement for civil and human rights, Black folks are still fighting for those rights.
If a 94-year-old Dr. King were still around, he’d be incredibly disappointed that we are still fighting for safe and full access to voting. I think he’d feel the same disappointment about the health care racial disparities, especially how they showed up during the pandemic.
Because he was fighting for living wage jobs at the time of his assassination, Dr. King would be outraged that the income gap in the U.S. is the highest it has been in 50 years. Dr. King would be aghast that militarization has seeped into our personal relationships where weapons used in wars are now being used to resolve conflict in our homes and in our neighborhoods.
I know Dr. King would be deeply saddened that there were over 600 mass shootings last year, and surely would be troubled that 51 of those shootings happened in schools. The daunting statistic that guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens would bring tears to his eyes.
I’m quite sure Dr. King would be heartened by the elections and appointments of people of color and women to powerful positions. He might be awestruck by the technological advances made in the name of medicine and science.
Dr. King would have strong admonishments for white liberals and their spectator role they have assumed in the fight against racism. We know this because he openly talked about his disappointment in the infamous Birmingham letter as well as in other speeches and writings where he warned their “polite” racism was an obstruction to racial equity.
Dr. King would feel compelled to remind us that “the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power.” He would ask us if the election of people to high places, passed legislation, and adopted policies had moved the needle on how political and economic power was being redistributed in this country to improve the quality of life for poor and working-class families.
The battle looming ahead is the preservation of democracy and whose hands it will be in. The vision that Dr. King articulated for this country is not just one of hope but for the political, economic and social transformation that will create a new reality.
Dr. Martin Luther King would tell us today what he told us sixty years ago on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: “We…remind America of the fierce urgency of now. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”
Reflections on 2022 Reveal Our Tasks Ahead
Our pandemic-weary country endured a lot in 2022. There were many battles on the local, state and national fronts. We won some, we lost some. As the smoke cleared — literally and figuratively — it was clear to me that the biggest battle looming ahead is the preservation of the republic, and the democratic principles that hold it together.
When conservatives say, “Make America great again,” they really mean taking the nation back one hundred years when white men ruled. They intend to erase the triumphant struggles of people of African descent, women, gays and other non-white, non-male people who have fought gallantly to gain full citizenship rights.
We temporarily lost the battle to uphold a woman’s constitutional right to a safe and accessible abortion when the U.S. Supreme Court misused its power. Women and their allies didn’t go down without a fight. The court ruling kicked states like Kansas into action to ensure a woman’s right to choose prevailed.
Same-sex and interracial marriages got affirmation when the Respect for Marriage Act was signed by President Joe Biden. This was a big win. The law protects marriage regardless of race and sexual orientation. The bill had bi-partisan support, proof that we can compromise on the important issues.
The No Surprise Act went into effect this year, putting the kibosh on medical facilities from making surprise medical charges to unsuspecting clients. This was a big deal because medical bills are the main reason for the crushing personal debt of Americans.
Over the last century, hundreds of bills have been introduced to ban lynching in America but never made it to a president’s desk for signing. The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching bill makes lynching a federal hate crime. Now to re-defining what a 21st Century lynching is.
Then sometimes when you think you have a big win, a deeper look turns up loopholes or gaps. The Housing Omnibus Appropriations Bill included funding for many affordable housing and community development programs. The law left out funding for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Housing needs are not just about homeownership. Rent costs are off the chain now, especially in places where developers are gentrifying. The real estate industry is re-defining what viable American neighborhoods look like. The lack of affordable housing feeds the homeless crisis in this country.
Still, the elephant in the room is the January 6 Insurrection. The Congressional hearings exposed evidence of organized forces hell-bent on taking the governance of this country by any means necessary. The forces include elected officials and others in positions of authority. This is not just a trump production although certainly he has played a critical role.
Millions of main white folks are MAGA-ites without openly claiming membership. Results since the 2020 presidential elections keep showing us they are aggressively pushing their agenda. The Georgia senate was a vivid example. There was no overwhelming Blue victory of Raphael Warnock over Herschel Walker. We saw a repeat scenario in Wisconsin with the gubernatorial race. Incumbent Tony Evers barely beat his Republic challenger Tim Michels.
To significantly change these ratios, it’s not just about electioneering and getting out the vote on election days. The real work is getting people focused on an agenda of human needs and human rights for all people. It means changing the polarizing public discourse about who is deserving of citizenship rights. It means leaning into meaningful interactions with “the other” to see where we may find common ground.