To Jason and Earle, who I'm consistently involved in fantasy basketball leagues with, I apologize that you have to read this two years in a row. Now that I have a blog, I believe this is the more appropriate place for this note. I did not want Martin Luther King Day to go by without attempting to add some perspective. I was born in L.A. in 1971, in a multi-cultural community. I've been fortunate enough not to see racism. Oh, sure I've seen dummies who called people of different races bad names; and I've seen older women clutch their purse tighter around minority young men; and I've seen people stereotype different races. To me, these are examples of a category lighter than racism - ignorance or personal prejudice. But what I would consider "REAL RACISM" or institutional racism as Stokley Carmichael defines as the organizational structure excluding of minorities (specifically blacks), I have never seen.
So Helen, my now 7 yr old was in kindergarten last year, and was being taught about Martin Luther King in school and I was concerned exactly what message would be taught. So, as a parent I am constantly trying to gently communicate to the girls the things that they may not be ready for. Before this school lesson, Helen wasn't aware what a black person was. I recall a situation when she told me to "Look at that black guy". I would look over only to find a white guy in black clothes. She has friends of different races, but the issue of the color of their skin has never been a question in her mind. It was of no significance to her, as it shouldn't be. I certainly did not want the school to start teaching her the opposite of her own true and decent experience, I did not want them teaching her that race SHOULD BE of great focus. To me, creating this distinction (or segregation) in my girl's mind at her age can only be a negative thing. So, I decided to read up a little bit on Martin Luther King to see if I could take some truth right from the doctor's mouth into my girls' ears in a way that they can understand it constructively.
Some things that struck me tremendously, were there was not very much that I could directly communicate to my 6 year old (at that time) for two major reasons. 1. King's arguments were political about how the government needs to change. This is a concept that is over the head of my very intelligent youngin. 2. The reason I wrote this piece, was that it is just shocking how bad racial oppression was just 45 short years ago. This is stuff that happened in our parents lifetime. I'm only 8 year short of 45!! It's not so long ago that the situation in this country was so absolutely disgraceful with respect to black people. The degree of this disgrace, I can not yet communicate to my developing daughter and stunt her developing spirit by telling her the country I love so much and uplift every time I get a chance acted so evilly towards decent people for no good reason.
I was most moved by King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". Here's an excerpt from it to spell out how much evil America allowed, and why King DEMANDED change from this government and its blatant hypocrysy towards the Declaration of Independence principal stating that "All Men are Created Equal":
"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill -your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience."
Can you imagine such treatment just 45 years ago? I hope that this information can cause us all to take a moment, bow our heads and thank the Almighty God that this great man was willing to answer God's call to stand boldly, and give his life, for the Freedom that America holds as it's ideal, at such a time when his words could be heard loudly. At such a time, when he could change the hearts of men.
Now as we are on the doorstep of a new first for black Americans, Monday will serve as a reminder of a great man and why we celebrate him.
So Helen, my now 7 yr old was in kindergarten last year, and was being taught about Martin Luther King in school and I was concerned exactly what message would be taught. So, as a parent I am constantly trying to gently communicate to the girls the things that they may not be ready for. Before this school lesson, Helen wasn't aware what a black person was. I recall a situation when she told me to "Look at that black guy". I would look over only to find a white guy in black clothes. She has friends of different races, but the issue of the color of their skin has never been a question in her mind. It was of no significance to her, as it shouldn't be. I certainly did not want the school to start teaching her the opposite of her own true and decent experience, I did not want them teaching her that race SHOULD BE of great focus. To me, creating this distinction (or segregation) in my girl's mind at her age can only be a negative thing. So, I decided to read up a little bit on Martin Luther King to see if I could take some truth right from the doctor's mouth into my girls' ears in a way that they can understand it constructively.
Some things that struck me tremendously, were there was not very much that I could directly communicate to my 6 year old (at that time) for two major reasons. 1. King's arguments were political about how the government needs to change. This is a concept that is over the head of my very intelligent youngin. 2. The reason I wrote this piece, was that it is just shocking how bad racial oppression was just 45 short years ago. This is stuff that happened in our parents lifetime. I'm only 8 year short of 45!! It's not so long ago that the situation in this country was so absolutely disgraceful with respect to black people. The degree of this disgrace, I can not yet communicate to my developing daughter and stunt her developing spirit by telling her the country I love so much and uplift every time I get a chance acted so evilly towards decent people for no good reason.
I was most moved by King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". Here's an excerpt from it to spell out how much evil America allowed, and why King DEMANDED change from this government and its blatant hypocrysy towards the Declaration of Independence principal stating that "All Men are Created Equal":
"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill -your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience."
Can you imagine such treatment just 45 years ago? I hope that this information can cause us all to take a moment, bow our heads and thank the Almighty God that this great man was willing to answer God's call to stand boldly, and give his life, for the Freedom that America holds as it's ideal, at such a time when his words could be heard loudly. At such a time, when he could change the hearts of men.
Now as we are on the doorstep of a new first for black Americans, Monday will serve as a reminder of a great man and why we celebrate him.
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