Forty-five years ago on this date, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. That is both remarkable and unbelievable (though two seemingly synonyms, not quite). It is remarkable in the fact that in that time so much has happened, and that on this anniversary there is a Black President, who is also African-American, meaning that he has immediate African heritage, in the Oval Office of the United States of America, but also unbelievable in that it was JUST 45 years ago that Martin Luther King was struggling for Civil Rights. It is one of those cognitive disjuncts that just seems so far away, but in reality is so close. Today also celebrates the 40th or so anniversary of a cellular phone that ten years later became a cell phone on the public market, and that the smart phones we know of today are less than ten years old.
Times fly, yet, because of the swiftness of such advances, it is easy to forget the glacial progress that proceeds such monumental events as MLK or the cell phone. You may say that this is to place the sacred against the profane, but in all honesty, the are both signs of the Times. Things are moving now at a lightning speed. The fiber optics of both the civil sector as well as technology makes it hard for one to keep up, to appreciate the advances that we are seeing on both levels.
Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the wake of the Civil Rights' Movement, we experienced something most of the rest of the country did not. In fact, as far as I know, it was the first city to implement "bussing" into the curriculum. Louisville, in the heart of the Mason-Dixon divisional lines, was experimental in the sense of in the early 70's, each year, depending upon the first letter of your last name, you would either be bussed to the "inner city" or out to the "suburbs." This was an attempt at integrating two worlds, two worlds that had very little in common except youth.
I remember the "black kids" who were bussed into Norton Elementary and I remember my "white friends" who were bussed out to the inner city. There were successful cross-overs, but there were also monumental failures.
It was forced integration, which superficially may seem good, but ultimately it fails, which it did some years later, after we had moved to the even more divided Texas town of Amarillo, where, for the most part, white is white, and black is black, unless you play football or basketball, and then the lines are blurred.
Racial divisions still play a deciding factor in much of America, but, I have this to say. At least we addressed it. At least it came out to the fore and became a social issue. What I have and still experience in Europe is a pseudo-Civil Rights attitude, meaning that they think that they have transcended it, without ever having gone through the Rosa Parks, the Million Man March, the "I Have a Dream" speeches that America did give free speech to. Like it or not, America does give that voice, and even more so when it is fought for. I feel that often in Europe it seems to be taken as a given, but is not really given at all.
I believe that Race and Religion still divide the majority of the world, despite all of the progress we have made in those areas. I believe that they always have, and sadly, most likely, always will. However, as I have written, when in India, the three most important Americans were: Abraham Lincoln (now denigrated to a Vampire hunter), MLK and Bill Gates. That gave me pause then, and it gives me pause now. That is America, in a nutshell. We are a country of extremes and innovations. I do get a bit tired of the European jadedness of what America actually has contributed on the world stage, beyond "Hollywood Endings," and that we do have something to say.
MLK came out of the American culture, and I believe that it was because of the American culture that someone like MLK could have flourished, and sadly enough, was vulnerable to the death he suffered. Like JFK and John Lennon, and many others, MLK proved to be very human and very susceptible to human frailty. He was no saint. He was no martyr. But, he was a man who stood up against the tide.
U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" is an album that more or less in its entirety is devoted to MLK and his legacy and his message, so with that, I will leave you with Bono, a much better spokesman than myself.
Times fly, yet, because of the swiftness of such advances, it is easy to forget the glacial progress that proceeds such monumental events as MLK or the cell phone. You may say that this is to place the sacred against the profane, but in all honesty, the are both signs of the Times. Things are moving now at a lightning speed. The fiber optics of both the civil sector as well as technology makes it hard for one to keep up, to appreciate the advances that we are seeing on both levels.
Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the wake of the Civil Rights' Movement, we experienced something most of the rest of the country did not. In fact, as far as I know, it was the first city to implement "bussing" into the curriculum. Louisville, in the heart of the Mason-Dixon divisional lines, was experimental in the sense of in the early 70's, each year, depending upon the first letter of your last name, you would either be bussed to the "inner city" or out to the "suburbs." This was an attempt at integrating two worlds, two worlds that had very little in common except youth.
I remember the "black kids" who were bussed into Norton Elementary and I remember my "white friends" who were bussed out to the inner city. There were successful cross-overs, but there were also monumental failures.
It was forced integration, which superficially may seem good, but ultimately it fails, which it did some years later, after we had moved to the even more divided Texas town of Amarillo, where, for the most part, white is white, and black is black, unless you play football or basketball, and then the lines are blurred.
Racial divisions still play a deciding factor in much of America, but, I have this to say. At least we addressed it. At least it came out to the fore and became a social issue. What I have and still experience in Europe is a pseudo-Civil Rights attitude, meaning that they think that they have transcended it, without ever having gone through the Rosa Parks, the Million Man March, the "I Have a Dream" speeches that America did give free speech to. Like it or not, America does give that voice, and even more so when it is fought for. I feel that often in Europe it seems to be taken as a given, but is not really given at all.
I believe that Race and Religion still divide the majority of the world, despite all of the progress we have made in those areas. I believe that they always have, and sadly, most likely, always will. However, as I have written, when in India, the three most important Americans were: Abraham Lincoln (now denigrated to a Vampire hunter), MLK and Bill Gates. That gave me pause then, and it gives me pause now. That is America, in a nutshell. We are a country of extremes and innovations. I do get a bit tired of the European jadedness of what America actually has contributed on the world stage, beyond "Hollywood Endings," and that we do have something to say.
MLK came out of the American culture, and I believe that it was because of the American culture that someone like MLK could have flourished, and sadly enough, was vulnerable to the death he suffered. Like JFK and John Lennon, and many others, MLK proved to be very human and very susceptible to human frailty. He was no saint. He was no martyr. But, he was a man who stood up against the tide.
U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" is an album that more or less in its entirety is devoted to MLK and his legacy and his message, so with that, I will leave you with Bono, a much better spokesman than myself.
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