What It Means To Be Human

I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As a citizen of the US, I’ve usually had today off, the day honoring the life and message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I was a kid, it usually just meant I had an extra day on weekends to play outside in the snow. As a college student, a day off from classes to do more classwork, and as an adult, depending on the job, an extra day to the weekend. The significance of the day was always at the back of my mind, but it was never at the forefront.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to post about this topic, the topic of humanity and being decent in terms of racial issues, but that came from an apathy I’ve had most of my life. What can I do as a single white person in a mostly red state where microaggressions of racism happen daily and I’ve sometimes inadvertently participated in? Last year, in some of the strongest moments of the Black Lives Matter movement, I sat back and let everyone else speak. I fully believe in the movement, and I fully believe in the anger of black people tired of being treated the way they do. It is a righteous fury, and I am here to support and lift in any way I can. I don’t have much to offer, but I do have my voice.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I know that I’m using his quotes today in this post, and that a lot of white people will post his words today in a show of solidarity with his message and his legacy, but what are we doing after we post these quotes? You can use your words all you want, but if your actions don’t follow through with those words, they become less.

The words I’m posting come from his speech about the Vietnam War, a turbulent time for our country, one of the first times people exercised their right to free speech with such a ferocity against the government. He spoke with passion about how it was a contradiction that he was protesting for peace for his own movement when the entire country was at war, and how he had to somehow convince the people who followed his example not to use violence to spread the message. He had an enormous task on his shoulders. His words then are just as important now. Especially after last year’s growth in activism and the attack on the capitol earlier this month.

We are not at peace. We have not been at peace for a very long time. I believe it was exacerbated by the last four years of government in my country, but it didn’t start with the leaving presidency. It was there, waiting to be ignited. We cannot ignore the inciting and inflammatory words of someone who is elected to lead us because he had financial policies or other policies that may have worked. Policy is nothing without humanity behind it. The acts of people against their own capitol building because of a disapproval of the loss of a favored candidate feels childish. It feels immature and lacks the strength of a purpose. I could understand the protests last year. I could understand that because people were and are still dying because of their skin color. I can’t understand this.

I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Have we truly heard? Have we learned enough? Will there ever be a time when it is enough?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those who perpetuated the events at the capitol, those who consistently promote messages of hate for whatever reason they do, it’s difficult not to call them enemies. I don’t know that they are enemies, or if they’re simply going along with whatever is trending in their area. The mob effect is pretty powerful, even if it’s a mob of stupidity. Sometimes especially then. I’m not saying their beliefs are stupid, by the way, but their methods of going about expressing their beliefs lacks a certain level of intelligence.

I don’t know what the answers are because I honestly don’t know enough. But that’s changing this year. This year, I will be more informed, and be more conscious of my own shortcomings in the knowledge of how others live. I will do what I can, and so must we all, because the only way we’ll ever make it out of any bad situation–whether it’s pandemic or otherwise–is by pulling together and seeing each other for the people we are. We must hear each other, actively hear each other.

It’ll be difficult. Tackling institutions of ways of life, going against “it’s how we’ve always done it,” is always going to feel impossible. But it is possible. It is probably going to take more time than we’d like to think it will, but it is possible to change. It is possible to regain what we’ve lost of our humanity, and I believe we will do so incandescently.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.