Where is our Martin Luther King?

The vigils were about remembering the promise, the dream and the redemption.  The convocations recalled the inner might and severe determination of a single man who braved the raw face of evil for the sake of freedom.  His words still resonate across the decades as children are taught the history of hate and learn of the exhilaration of real societal change.  In his dream, Martin Luther King articulated the vision of a landscape of equality across the nation.

He was a non-violent fighter.  Unlike the pugilists of the Tyson ilk that fight for the sake of boundless anger, King was relentless in waging a war against a monolithic America from which he was excluded.  I think the reason why his speeches still move us is because of their immediate and justified rage.  We look at the colorless pictures of a King raising his hands in a fury of recrimination and challenge: We recognize the burning words of urgency that rise in a timber and pitch.  The dream reaches into us because it fills a yawning answered hunger and call within.

At the MLK breakfast  many children voiced their pride in writing.  They were responding to the question of ‘What would you tell Martin Luther King if he were alive today?’  Some said thank you; others asked what it was like in heaven.  Their answers set my mind to thinking; what would he say?  What would King be doing if he were alive today?  Would he embrace the changes he fought so hard for?  Would he retire in quiet dignity to some small southern town knowing the great good he had accomplished?

What moves America about King is that he spoke to us all regardless of the way we look, or the language that we speak, or our choice of worship.  His words reached across chasms of distrust.  They confirmed what only a few were willing to acknowledge: the gift of freedom is not given, it is earned.  We still need him.

Presumptuous it might be to speak for him, I believe that the nearly mythic giant King would strike out in anger that we have become so smug, so complacent in a world filled with horror.  His voice would rise to near feverous pitch with the searing pain of our time.  It is utterly unfathomable that in this world there are places where slavery is still practiced.  People are ripped from their homes and so degraded that can be bought, sold, abused with no thought of morality.  In such a world we have not moved forward from the base and ugly discrimination of the past.  We have regressed.  Would King be proud?  I do not think so.

Just returning from a convention of colleagues, we voiced our outrage at a silent and indifferent universe.  Resolutions were passed and words were spoken detailing the brutality of Nepal, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates.  Children and women are forcibly taken, then bought and sold, traded, used.  Just last year, five children were taken and sold as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates.  Thankfully, in this instance, the children were rescued.  But how many are not?  

There is no shouting.  No demonstrations.  There are few articles in the papers which carry the personal stories of the afflicted.   Where are the Martin Luther Kings of today?  Where are the fighters who wage the assault of the biggest travesty of all?  I am straining to hear them.  Yet, all I hear is silence.  We need them now, even one would be enough.

We need a King to rouse us from indifference.  We need a King to appeal to what we already know as fact and truth.  We need to hear the unsettling voice tell us that all is not right at home.  For as long as this misery and evil continues there can be no peace, no absolute security that freedom has been achieved.  The fight must continue.

I do not believe that Martin Luther King would be at ease.  No quiescence at some retirement village in southern Florida.  He would be deeply troubled and moved to scream, to rage.  We need his moral indignation now.

Blessed are the Different

In olden days (not so very long ago) people who looked significantly different from others were placed in circuses where spectators could ogle and spit with no fear of any wrongdoing.  After all, the bearded lady and tiny prince were on display!  They were on stage, parading about as weird anomalies of nature.

            In yet older times, such individuals were thought to be possessed of demons.  Their parents must have committed some foul crime to give birth to such offspring!  Like the famed hunchback of Notre Dame there was no limit to the cruelties that could be leveled at them.  Human dignity extended only as far as the eye could see.

            Ancient Greeks would place deformed infants on the mountaintops to die of exposure.  The Greek civilization reasoned that they could be of little use to their family and society, if allowed to live.  The Nazis also adopted this notion of utility.  Their logic was that if members of society could not be productive, they would be leeches draining the nation of valuable resources.  Better they should be exterminated.  That is why the Nazis first gassed the mentally impaired- no use wasting energy on a population segment that could not create the nascent Reich.

Wendy Mogul, author of  Blessings of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children describes this scene:

                    When my family and I were studying at a Hebrew language institute in Israel one summer, we were housed at a hotel with a large group of what the Israelis called "special people" (mentally retarded and physically handicapped adults) enjoying their government-sponsored beach holiday. My children had never before seen people as peculiar looking and oddly behaved as these. One had a large knobby growth protruding from her ear, one had legs two inches in diameter, and there was Moti, a friendly young man of very limited intelligence. Moti spent much of his time vigorously greeting every passerby with a hearty "Good Morning!" and a nonstop handshake whatever the hour, day or night.

                     You see, most of the world would rather have sights like this far removed from their vision.  Yet, in Israel, the “special people” are a part of the fabric of everyday life.

A definition.  Normal, n. anyone like me.

                                                                             É

                     From the time we are young we are taught to make distinctions between us and them.  The boys have a contest against the girls.  The teachers vs. students.  The in-crowd vs the geeks.  Us vs. them.  Aryans vs Jews.  Backs vs whites.  Where distinctions become more limited we invent them.  Tutsis vs. Hutus.  Hindus vs Sikhs. 

                     Sometimes we resort to self-definition by what we are not.  That is, we develop an identity by pointing to others and saying “that’s not me.”  I suspect the people that visited the Man with the Elephant Ears went home feeling much better about themselves.  I also suspect that the Nazis felt empowered as they rid themselves of human detritus much in the same way that the Greeks blessed themselves when they produced healthy children.

                     Closest to the truth is that no one fits the mold of “normal.”  No one.  As we are all cast in a unique fashion – everyone is either normal or abnormal.  Take your pick.  “Why did God create all humanity through one human being?” asks the Talmud.  “So that no one can say that their lineage is superior.”  It then goes on to say that, “no two people are exactly alike even though we are all made from the same mold.  Therefore everyone must say The universe was created for my sake.”    Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5

                        There's a Jewish blessing that is said when you see exceptionally beautiful people or things: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, who has such beauty in His universe." And there is one to say when noticing strange-looking people or animals: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, who varies creation."

            Pay close attention: We do not recoil when we see a human being different from the “norm.”  We are not to “count our blessings” either.  Instead, our faith holds that we thank God for having created each person uniquely.  Unlike the Nazis and other societies we do not kill the disabled or gawk at them to appreciate our own bounty; they are to be valued as much as the abled.