Speaking of withheld heroes . . .
Jan. 21st, 2004 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaMeant to post this yesterday, for MLK's holiday. Sorry, no cut tag. This one's worth reading, or at least scrolling past.
"In life he projected himself as 'a drum major for justice.' In death he is being projected by the media as a nonthreatening 'dreamer.' We must resist this weak and anemic memory of a great man. Why is it that, . . . so many politicians today emphasize that Dr. King was a dreamer and add, almost by accident that, oh yeah, his dreams became reality?
I submit that they want to project him as a dreamer because they wish us to remember this great leader as an idealist without substance, not as the concrete reality he was. Dr. King was a realist with ideals, he was not an idealist without reality. The only way to honor him is to make his memory a continuing concrete reality and be driven by his spirit. . . . Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not assassinated for dreaming. He was assassinated for acting and challenging the government. We honor Dr. King most by action for justice. His birthday should be celebrated by action, not just speeches and songs about action."
~ from a speech by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson to the Federal Communications Commission Bar Association of Washington, Jan. 12, 1986
Comments behind a cut tag, in case
Why are there never any major speeches on King's birthday by white people? Doesn't he belong to us too? Didn't he make my world different, and immeasurably better?
I am forever grateful to have lived when he lived, and to have had the privilege of hearing him speak, and once, even, of marching in his wake. It was the most terrifying experience of my life, and now I think it was the most precious. I know that heroes are not fiction, not fantasy, not decorative. They are real, they move and live in the world and breathe our air and eat our meat and change our lives.
King was a brave man who took brave actions, a warrior poet like the heroes of Homer who could move a million people, a generation, a nation, with the power of his ideas and the beauty of his words, and his fierce courage. I mean real courage: the stones they threw in Selma, in Montgomery, in Chicago were not dream-stones.
Sir Thomas Browne wrote, in The Garden of Cyrus (1658):
Flat and flexible truths
Are beat out by every hammer
But Vulcan and his whole forge sweat
to work out
Achilles his armour.
He was undoubtedly thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.
On a lighter note, while listening (against my better judgment) to the reports & speeches from Iowa yesterday, which were giving me cramps in the brain, I made chicken soup with cumin guaranteed to kick the ass of all flu viruses.
And after spending far too much time reading H/D slash this weekend, I cannot help thinking that what Harry and Draco need to cure all this angst!darkworld!sex!trauma!upheaval is the same thing the Democratic Party needs: a big bowl of kickass chicken soup.
Yes. I am going to write a wildly successful self-help book. It will be titled Chicken Soup for the Stomach.
Will make millions.
"In life he projected himself as 'a drum major for justice.' In death he is being projected by the media as a nonthreatening 'dreamer.' We must resist this weak and anemic memory of a great man. Why is it that, . . . so many politicians today emphasize that Dr. King was a dreamer and add, almost by accident that, oh yeah, his dreams became reality?
I submit that they want to project him as a dreamer because they wish us to remember this great leader as an idealist without substance, not as the concrete reality he was. Dr. King was a realist with ideals, he was not an idealist without reality. The only way to honor him is to make his memory a continuing concrete reality and be driven by his spirit. . . . Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not assassinated for dreaming. He was assassinated for acting and challenging the government. We honor Dr. King most by action for justice. His birthday should be celebrated by action, not just speeches and songs about action."
~ from a speech by Rev. Jesse L. Jackson to the Federal Communications Commission Bar Association of Washington, Jan. 12, 1986
Comments behind a cut tag, in case
Why are there never any major speeches on King's birthday by white people? Doesn't he belong to us too? Didn't he make my world different, and immeasurably better?
I am forever grateful to have lived when he lived, and to have had the privilege of hearing him speak, and once, even, of marching in his wake. It was the most terrifying experience of my life, and now I think it was the most precious. I know that heroes are not fiction, not fantasy, not decorative. They are real, they move and live in the world and breathe our air and eat our meat and change our lives.
King was a brave man who took brave actions, a warrior poet like the heroes of Homer who could move a million people, a generation, a nation, with the power of his ideas and the beauty of his words, and his fierce courage. I mean real courage: the stones they threw in Selma, in Montgomery, in Chicago were not dream-stones.
Sir Thomas Browne wrote, in The Garden of Cyrus (1658):
Flat and flexible truths
Are beat out by every hammer
But Vulcan and his whole forge sweat
to work out
Achilles his armour.
He was undoubtedly thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr.
On a lighter note, while listening (against my better judgment) to the reports & speeches from Iowa yesterday, which were giving me cramps in the brain, I made chicken soup with cumin guaranteed to kick the ass of all flu viruses.
And after spending far too much time reading H/D slash this weekend, I cannot help thinking that what Harry and Draco need to cure all this angst!darkworld!sex!trauma!upheaval is the same thing the Democratic Party needs: a big bowl of kickass chicken soup.
Yes. I am going to write a wildly successful self-help book. It will be titled Chicken Soup for the Stomach.
Will make millions.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 02:57 pm (UTC)Which says something good about nonviolence, seems to me.
I saw a nice march of pacifists on the upper west side monday, mostly white. I'm so glad I didnt have to listen to whatever remarks Bushy made in Atlanta.
And woo hoo Thos Browne! And woo hoo Malsperanza!
/ *slightly less hysterical than Howard Dean*
no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 07:15 pm (UTC)On Monday I listened to his "Dream" speech, and during it, felt transported to the Lincoln Memorial, 1963. It was almost like an out of body experience. The contrast to yesterday's State of the Union was jarring, like going from Mozart to heavy metal.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-30 03:06 pm (UTC)Why are there never any major speeches on King's birthday by white people? Doesn't he belong to us too? Didn't he make my world different, and immeasurably better?
Ah, very true.