Annual
observances of MLK’s birthday can become impediments to historical memory where
critical thinking is required. Only three years after his “I have
a dream” speech, Dr. King and the civil rights movement stalled at the point
where it encountered the toxic mixture of economic and class-based segregation and
limited opportunities in northern cities like Chicago, Boston and Cleveland.
What they found in these highly
segregated cities is a familiar story today: insufficient work and opportunity,
hard-bitten wage earners fighting and clawing for foot holds on security for
themselves and their families. They lived in those days in a world of union
solidarity (or exclusion) that was a combination of standoff by dynamite,
mounted police and the corruptions of political patronage. Today they work at
jobs that do not pay enough to support a family.
In 1964 what had seemed a matter of moral
courage and persuasion in the South had become more like an encounter with the four horsemen
of the apocalypse by 1967. In Dr. King’s
last months he and his movement partners found themselves deciding whether to march
against the monstrous realities of the Vietnam War or launch a domestic war on
poverty. It would be hell either way. King was still dreaming but the familiar
ground had changed under his feet. Moral
appeal in northern cities had few ears for the hearing of it.
This was a different kind of theological problem. Abruptly King’s vision, his transcendent
call, had become a dream of integration into a world that did not really exist.
The main elements of the toxic mix he
encountered are still our current reality fifty years later, only much more
dangerous. Today it connects to Syria,
Egypt, Central Africa, Afghanistan and all the rest. Growing global inequality is making 2014 the year of living
dangerously. Those apocalyptic horsemen are riding hard (traditionally conquest,
war, famine and death).
Faith communities have a call, if they
can hear it, to renew Dr. King’s drive to create an alternative imagination. The
problem is that most faith communities have become comfort zones. They can be
heard on any given day praying for themselves, their babies, their growing kids,
their elderly parents, but not for the forty people killed yesterday in a raid
by Boko Haram on Kawuri in Nigeria. And they study not; perpetual bible study,
maybe, but usually not a political or sociological analysis of the problems to which their biblical studies may direct them. Such as these:
“ General Electric’s decision
to open its first new assembly line in 55 years in Louisville, Ky [will offer jobs]
at just over $13.50 an hour. That’s less than $30,000 a year
“Volkswagen…. is bringing around
2,000 fresh auto jobs to America [with a] beginning wage for assembly line
workers of $14.50 per hour, about half
of what traditional, unionized workers employed by General Motors or Ford
received.
“[These Volkswagen jobs will]
cost Volkswagen $27 per hour…..in Germany, the average autoworker earns $67 per
hour.
“In effect….Volkswagen has
moved production from a high-wage country (Germany) to a low-wage country (the
United States).”
[Wall Street analyst Steve Ratner, N. Y. Times 1/26/14]
Martin Luther King, Jr. did go symbolically
to Kawuri, only its name was Memphis. If his dream is to live on it must be
given new configurations if peace doves are to fly in Chicago or Kawuri. Not to follow the path of the King dream is
to stay comfortable. That’s why this is the year of living dangerously. We must go to Kawuri. There’s little time
left to pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment