Today in class, we spoke at length about commemorating
the past, and the different ways in which we remember Martin Luther King Jr,.
even if we do remember King 2.0, as Dr McKinney points out to us. A few weeks
ago, Terri Freeman, the President of the Civil Rights Museum, gave a speech concerning
the problem of moving forward with Civil Rights in the coming weeks as we commemorate
King. Freeman, quite rightly, urges us to draw our attention not to romanticizing
the past by continuously looking back, but says that instead, we should be
looking to the future, and argues that really, the real question is: “Where do
we go from here?”
Of course, it is important to remember King, and the sacrifices
he made, but this question as well as the importance of the movement are still
very much alive today. Nevertheless, these are sometimes clouded by the
importance we place on commemorating King, the man, not the movement he stood
for. Yes, we should remember him, but perhaps days like MLK day should be more
about moving forward and away from the struggle for equality. While it cannot
be disputed that commemoration is an important aspect of Black history month,
perhaps more focus should be placed on the issues of where we go from here.
In her speech, Freeman used a variety of examples to
demonstrate the inequality that we still live with. In the cited article, it is
stated that “Over the half-century, the income of
African-Americans in Memphis has steadily been at 50 percent of white
residents. It has grown but it has not caught up […] In 1960, 1.2 percent of
African-Americans in Memphis had college degrees. Today, more than 20 percent
hold post-secondary degrees, but the income disparity has not budged, Freeman
said.”
Over April 2-3rd, there will be a symposium
concerning these very issues, issues over the future, not the past. These are
things going into the future that need to be continuously on our minds, especially
given that in a few short months we will be giving our answers to this vital
question. Essentially, it is about continuing the fight and the struggle to
make life that little bit better for the people who need it most.
Again, I will reiterate that obviously remembering King
is important, but there are also other things we need to be doing instead of
passively idealizing him, we need to be looking around and seeing King everywhere
and recognizing where his presence still is in order to move forward.
This is a very thoughtful post about intentionally pursuing anti-oppression and liberation. Personally, I've really appreciated anarchist movements and the ideas of community-minded humanity. As Noam Chomsky writes: "only through their own struggle for liberation will ordinary people come to comprehend their true natue, suppressed and distorted within institutional structures designed to assure obedience and subordination...[we must] free society of all political and social coercive institutions which stand in the way of the development of a free humanity. In this sense, mutualism, collectivism, and communism [will shape] and safeguard a free community." We cannot at once work with the oppressive system and attempt to dismantle it.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me a lot of what Wendi Thomas works towards in MLK50: Justice through Journalism. I'm really glad she's coming to class later in the semester, as she is someone who can speak extensively on this specific issue. I was able to go to a Kinney panel discussion earlier in the semester on economic justice, and it pertained a lot to this post/article.
ReplyDeletehttps://mlk50.com