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An Extremist for Love
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Then and Now
Turning Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday into a national holiday is one of the things that America got right. It's a day set apart from all others, when all generations will pause to think about a great man, his legacy and what it should mean to us.
So far that sounds great, and to a large extent it's what's happened. But I've been around for all of the MLK birthday celebrations so far, and the yearly "celebration of his life" is starting to look in ways like a Disneyized version of both the man and his legacy. The last thing we need today is a romanticized version of Martin Luther King, Jr., much less an idealized version of the struggle that he stood for.
In l945, when Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower toured the former German concentration camp at Ohrdruf, he famously said to an aide, "Take pictures. Take lots of pictures. Some day some sons of bitches are going to try to say this never happened."
I haven't heard anyone say that the Civil Rights movement never happened, but the national memory is turning pretty soft. Despite the successful efforts of the Texas School Board to foist upon all American schoolchildren the audacious rewrite of history that gives short shrift to the Civil Rights movement -- and the shameless willingness of textbook publishers to go along with that - the facts do remain the facts. The Civil Rights movement was and remains one of the most significant social justice movements in the history of the Unites States. And despite the almost odd emphasis on "community service" which has come to mark this day- as in, you know, help the homeless, feed the poor, be "peaceful" -- Martin Luther King, Jr. stood for a love that was more significant and more difficult, involving a lot more suffering than just being a good citizen for a day. If all Martin Luther King Jr. had stood for was community service - if his message to black America had been simply to ameliorate the suffering in its midst through compassionate one-on-one action -- then he would probably not have died how or when he did. Let's be clear about that, and not hand down to our children some whitewashed version of the man and his mission. Martin Luther King was far more courageous and more dangerous to the status quo than is reflected in this contemporary caricature.
He challenged the United States to allocate its vast and gargantuan resources in a more fair, just and compassionate way; and for that, he died. He challenged, at the end of his life, the increasing American militarism that sent young men to die for old men's mistakes; and for that, he died. He demanded that the United States make good on its creed of liberty and justice for all, not just in word but in deed; and for that he died. We do not serve his legacy, and we do not serve our children, by portraying either the life or the struggle or the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. as simply the story of a peaceful man who sought to establish "the beloved community" and then, for some mysterious reason that shall remain shrouded in obfuscation, was shot on a motel balcony and died.
No, kids, if you believe that, then you're not asking enough questions. Yes, it's our job to keep his dream of the beloved community alive, but it's also our job to be as critically intelligent as he was regarding the entrenched resistance to the materialization of that dream.
A Protestant theologian in the 20th Century wrote a commentary on the story of the Good Samaritan as he made his journey from what we might call "good" Samaritan to "conscious" Samaritan. The first time the Samaritan saw a beggar on the road, he stopped to give him alms. The second time he saw a beggar on the road, he stopped to give him alms. The third time he saw a beggar on the road, he stopped to give him alms. About the fourth time he saw the beggar on the road, he stopped to ask himself, "Why are there so many beggars?" Martin Luther King would not just ask us to help those who suffer; he would ask us to challenge the institutional forces that make all that suffering inevitable.
On King's birthday this year, a good doctor in Oakland received a Martin Luther King, Jr. Hero's award for treating children with asthma in a low-income community. It struck me, as I watched the award ceremony, that in order to truly honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., we need do more than honor the good doctor who treats asthma: we need to ask ourselves, and demand of our government, what environmental regulations have been so compromised, and to whose financial benefit, that so many children in American today, particularly in our most disadvantaged communities, have asthma to begin with.
In order to truly keep Dr. King's dream of the beloved community alive, we must dream our own contemporary version of it. We can dream of an America that is not willing to protect the privileges of the few at the expense of the needs of the many; we can dream of an America in which our citizens are not so easily manipulated to equate the size of our military budget with the safety of our future; we can dream of an America, and a world, in which love and not money are civilization's bottom line.
MLK's love was not a complacent love, any more than his political activism was cynical or angry. When confronted with the accusation that he was an extremist, Dr. King made this reply, "Perhaps I am, but I'm an extremist for love." Did you hear that kids? Be extremists....for love. Do not be tricked into thinking that the struggle for the beloved community is easy, unchallenged, or over. It is none of those things. Just as in the days of Dr. King, the struggle for justice is often difficult, it attracts the ire of the prevailing system, and it is far from over. On this one day each year, when we think of Dr. Martin Luther King -- what he gave us, and what we lost -- in order to honor him most deeply, we will do more than community service. We will remember that our service must not stop there. We will try, as he did, to truly step up to the plate. And like him, we will change the world.
51 Comments so far
Show AllDidn't anyone else cringe when our president turned MLK day into a "day of service?" He actually used the phrase "drum major for service" instead of for "peace!" Was this a conscious change? I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The basic thrust of this article is right on. Boils down to the difference between charity and justice. King's own analysis of the "good samaritan" highlights this difference, and he was someone committed, obviously, to the latter. Not that there's anything wrong with charity, service and community organizing. But King was about systemic change and addressing root causes of the evils of society. This is, of course, why he was murdered. This is why Hoover and the government viewed him as a threat. MLK was a non-violent revolutionary. Reminds me of Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camara's comment: "WHen I helped the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they were poor, they called me a communist."
Good point. "Service" these days most strongly connotes the military. Thus MLK's message is inverted: the peace-lover MLK becomes a recruitment-accessory for "service", like in the military.
'Cause the army-boys are fighting for peace, ya know? - Well known fact.
I never heard of this women before, liked the essay, read your comment, and went to her website. I kept saying "What?", as she is supposedly a spiritual leader. Then I saw the jewelry page. Hallelujah, gotta' get me some of god's bling!
Some people will fall for anything.
Thanks for the heads up.
I'm on Marianne Williamson's home page right now, and I have yet to find any "jewelry page." Where are you finding this?
Besides, there is not an organization anywhere in the country that is not selling stuff, including all of the liberal and progressive organizations, and all of the major liberal and progressive websites. It is the only way to survive, it is the only permitted method of social exchange under Capitalism.
Spiritual leaders do not advocate vanity or accumulation of wealth.
Buck,
You still haven't answered the question. Where is she selling jewelry? I see that nowhere on her site whatsoever. Can you provide some sort of link?
Everyday Grace button
prayers to wear
wisdom worn close to the heart
Thank you. I see that now. And I agree: cheesy bling. Blech!
I still don't think that should detract from what was a fantastic essay on Marianne's part.
Did you actually read the article? it appears that perhaps you read one paragraph and just assumed you knew what I had written, because your description of what I said and what I believe is simply inaccurate.
I very much admire it when an author wades in and responds to critics.
The article is very good in my opinion and makes some important points. I was about to post that in response to another poster when I noticed that you had weighed in.
People are very angry about what the administration and the Democratic party have done, and are sorting out the good guys from the bad guys upon the basis of what people have said in the past regarding the president and the administration. That is a shallow and weak litmus test, but people here are adamant about using it. Others, including me, have abandoned any ideas that working within the system can ever work, or that electoral politics will ever bring change. The first group is implacable and fixated on their analysis that whether or not a person voted for or supported Obama is the ultimate determining factor in understanding their political positions. The second group is frustrated and largely shut out from the discussion, and so can sound harsh and confrontational.
I agree that this article was excellent and that each article should be taken in its own context.
Also people have to be allowed to change their minds over time without being attacked. Just be glad. No one is perfect and we aren't everyone else's judge.
I had a chance to spend a week with her back over 25 years ago, just the two of us talking and meeting people. She is sincere and genuine, and an exceptional and memorable person. Of course now she is famous, and that changes everything. Poor, starving nobody, or famous. There is no middle in this country. But how many here are willing to question that? Very few. Many here live in the "middle class" illusion. A close friend of mine spent some time with her recently so I have the benefit of that, as well.
The only "fault" there is that she may be slow to fully realize the depth of the crisis, and may be clinging to hopes that the system can be made to work and that personal spiritual enlightenment is the answer to the political crisis. But so what? That describes almost everyone in the country, including all liberals and progressives.
The Obama marketers very cynically and cleverly played on people's hopes for a spiritual rejuvenation and transformation in the country. Lots of smart people got fooled by one of the most brilliant - and dishonest - marketing campaigns in history. Many people will be slow to realize and accept the full degree to which they were conned. Can't blame them for that.
The article is not about Obama.
What is the matter with you?
ekobe -
150% agreed!!
Bring America Back !!!!
How we change the sick world since MLK is
not known to me, but I sure could use a
great big hug in the meantime.
Going back to the JFK speech just does not
cut it, since Nixon reversed the words and
used them in his re-election speech I think.
==ask what you can do for your country==!!!
What America do you want to bring back. I am curious since you start every post that way. Since it's founding, America has murdered, stolen, invaded. What part of America has been good?
Beautifully said and right on the money. Thank you Ms. Williamson, and thank you Rev. King.
I agree with the jist of this article, that MLK day can and is being used to serve nefarious institutional and individual agendas. After all it's not just us on the common side of a greater humanity that are understanding that how we frame our world, shapes our world. People, for their own selfish individual reasons seem to be trying to reframe one of our greatest symbols of peace, charity, and equality into a force for unjust wars, resegregation for our times, and for hearts not filled with charity, but but blocked from charity and left to thoughts desolate and desparate for power on any level. But it seems to me that Dr. King was not against institutions so much as he was against the human prejudices that formed the basis of these institutions, he marched in the streets face to face with that prejudice and set it down with the powers of peace and love compounding into a dream of equality for all. Death was the least of his worries and so here he is alive and well in spirit, what we who are the next generation of fierce warriors for peace carry on from his great and noble deeds of the heart, the place where charity and peace and equality can abide with any and all.
Note: After writing the following positive response, I read the scathing previous comments excoriating Ms. Williamson's alleged hypocrisy, and denouncing this article in light of her allegiance to the Obama maladministration. I was surprised by them; I'm not familiar with Ms. Williamson's career or allegiances, nor do I feel an obligation to research her history before proceeding.
If Ms. Williamson is in fact a shill or toady for the Obama maladministration-- and as noted, I have no reason to dispute it-- shame on her. I appreciate that in that context, this article would come off as bitterly ironic, and preposterously offensive. However, the article itself is entirely free of the Obama-sycophancy that informs the previous criticisms. And my crap detectors are highly-attuned to this trait.
So my response is based entirely on the merits of her article in and of itself. If Williamson is the hypocritical fool or knave she's made out to be, it's another example of the adage that even a blind pig roots up an acorn now and then.
___________________________
I absolutely despise the Establishment's hijacking, co-opting, and virtual obliteration of Dr. King's legacy as an evolving radical. The scrubbed, sanitized result pays lip-service to King's worthy civil-rights leadership and fervent advocacy of non-violent dissent and protest; it focuses on his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech to the exclusion of all else.
But it was only when King began to transcend his role as a reformer, and escalate his dissent to deeper, more profound, revolutionary critiques of capitalist classism and imperial militarism that he became a marked man.
Rahul Mahajan touched upon this circumstance, albeit clumsily, in a recent article published on CD entitled "What Would Dr. King Say About...? I Don't Give a Crap"* Like Mahajan, I've long been irked by the tired and tendentious "What Would X Say (or Do)?" framework; I share his disdain for this rhetorical crutch. And I rolled my eyes in recent decades when the dry, academic construct of "role model" was pried from the lexicon of sociology and turned into a banal, puerile, pop-culture cliché that rendered the simpler term "leader" passé.
To use Mahajan's term, is indeed reprehensible that King's legacy has been whittled down and diminished to a kind of "plaster sainthood". The radical King, who was brutally murdered by the government's military and security-state agencies, has been placed in a whited sepulcher; the gelded, airbrushed result reduces King to a mere "Positive Role Model": a sort of second-generation Booker T. Washington-- a benevolent patron saint of pious, complacent "good citizenship" and tame, timid, conventional "community service" and "volunteerism".
Unlike Mahajan, Ms. Williamson commendably affirms the deeper significance of King's life and death as a vibrant, enduring wellspring of inspiration, and cogently argues for a rehabilitated, reinvigorated appreciation of King.
As I noted in the conclusion of my criticism of Mahajan's article, "... the task is to ceaselessly hammer at the whited sepulcher in which King's true legacy has been imprisoned instead of merely spitting upon it, and liberate the radical legacy and transcendental inspiration buried within. To do less courts the dismal, nihilistic prospect that Dr. King and other similarly situated tragic heroes died in vain."
* http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/17-7
In fairness to the author, her views on the administration are evolving.
Williamson on Obama:
My Journey to Obama
I didn't start out with him. I thought people were projecting wildly onto him, making positive assumptions that he hadn't earned and filling in empty spaces in his resume with mere hopes of substance. But the longer campaign season has worked for me; having watched the candidates move through time, I've seen who's grown and who hasn't. I've ended up -- at least for now -- with Obama.
I'm perplexed by the question often presented by his opponents, "Yeah, but how is he really going to change things?" To me, he already has. He has awakened the sleeping giant of American democracy, and that is the greatest antidote to every problem we face.
more -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-williamson/my-journey-to-obama_b_81372.html
Feminism in the Age of Now
If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times. So let me explain why I'm not voting with my vagina…
As a feminist, I believe nurturing and nourishing a world trying to be born is the most effective way to heal the malevolent effects of a world that needs to pass away.
That is why I support Obama.
As a feminist, I believe inclusion is more powerful and life producing than is exclusion.
That is why I support Obama.
As a feminist, I believe tending and mending is a more effective way to deal with the world's stress points than is fighting or fleeing.
That is why I support Obama.
more -
http://blog.marianne.com/journal/archives/2008/01/feminism_in_the.php
More recently:
Where Does A Democrat Go From Here?
It's hard to own the disappointment I feel over our moderate corporate Democratic President. The whole Obama phenomenon brings up memories from my distant past: the good-looking guy who talks real good, whose line you don't buy immediately but whose charm is so dazzling that he gradually convinces you that this time it will be different.
Yeah. Right. Really different.
What the current administration is giving us is minimal change. And not because the President hasn't had the time to do better; if he had truly wanted to make fundamental change, he would have gone in there fast and done his own version of shock and awe in the first hundred days. And not because he didn't realize how mean all those Republicans can be, either; Obama knew what he was getting into, and if he didn't, then he was as unprepared for the job as his opponents said he was. I see so many people now -- many of them men, interestingly enough -- tangled up in an almost school-girlish, co-dependent, apologetic relationship with this President. As though "poor baby" should be tacked onto the end of every description of his failures.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-williamson/where-does-a-democrat-go_b_408557.html
The problem goes much deeper than whether anyone will or will not vote for Obama, or did or did not vote for Obama.
Seeing it as important that we reject Obama and those who did support or are supporting him and seeing it as important that we support Obama and those who did support or are supporting him are two sides of the same coin.
Ridiculous. I am not apologizing for Obama. I have been a strong and outspoken critic from the day he first emerged on the national scene. What an absurd and heavy-handed attempt at discrediting me.
Politics is not driven by personal electoral choices. It does not matter whether people vote for this candidate or that candidate. Obviously. But you insist that it does, and anyone who disagrees with that, and your ancillary position that opposing Obama is some radical or significant position you then claim is an apologist for the Democratic party or for Obama.
If being "for" Obama as the ultimate test of where someone stands is stupid, then so is making it all be about opposing Obama.
Please point out to me where Greenwald ever said that opposing or supporting Obama was the ultimate and most important thing we need to obsess over.
What are you talking about?
What is with all of the vitriol?
Geez, I agree with you about Obama. I voted Socialist where I could, and Green otherwise. I just don't live in some fantasy world and think that this nightmare we are experiencing can be voted away.
I opposed Obama from the time he first appeared on the scene, and followed the work by the Black Agenda Report about him from the time he first entered politics.
Your questions answered:
Q: Point out where I made that claim, genuis?
A: We can agree that the problems are complex, but those problems will only be exacerbated with a candidate from the duopoly. Read Greenwald's latest piece asserting that Obama has taken the war on terror further than Cheney or Bush...
Q: What exactly were they selling if not "presonal electorial choices?"
A: I don't care what they are selling, I said that it doesn't make any difference what choice we make.
Q: I also seem to remember a personal film highlighting Obama's life journey from his humble start to accepting the nomination in Denver; the film was also produced by Holliwood icon Spielberg. What exactly do you suppose they were selling?
A: Same answer as above.
Q: please explian why you voted for Obama
A: I didn't.
A: Are you then claiming your vote is based only on party affiliation?
A: Huh?
Q: Just curious what your standard is, if you care to share that?
A: Electoral choices are an idiotic way to imagine causing political change, and they are an idiotic measuring stick for deciding who is friend and foe.
The articles referenced showing Marianne Williamson's support of Obama are from the time of the November 2008 election. If she was mislead by candidate Obama and what he would do, she was not alone.
Agreed. I wasn't fooled by Obama and opposed him from the start, but those of us for whom that was true need to have a little humility about it. Those on the Left have been right about thousands of things over the last 40 years, and have been crying in the wilderness and largely ignored and dismissed. So this should be nothing new for anyone.
I am as impatient and as militant as anyone. However, I do not see "for or against Obama" as the ultimate dividing line between friend and foe. I don't see much difference between those who still believe in electoral politics and working within the system - no matter what candidate or party they promote - and those who hoped that the Democratic party would be useful or that the Obama administration would be the answer. They are both variations on beliefs ion the same myths, on the same denial and avoidance.
If people are going to believe in "our democracy" and keep looking to partisan electoral politics, if people are going to hang on to the "American dream," then they might as well support Obama since the two are one and the same thing. Obama is the inevitable result of a set of myths and deceptions about the way things work. People want to hang on to the illusion, and then they are unhappy with the only possible outcome of hanging on to that illusion. They keep cramming meat into the sausage grinder, and then complaining when sausage keeps coming out of the other end. But they will argue to the death if you try to tell them that cramming meet into the sausage grinder doesn't work, or tell them that it is the sausage grinder itself that is the problem.
This article from a year ago seems pretty close to a retraction of her support for Obama http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-williamson/where-does-a-democrat-go_b_408557.html. She expresses disappointment with Obama and goes so far as to consider going with the Green Party or backing a primary challenge to Obama. In the comments she gets a lot of criticism from Obama supporters for what she said.
Good point by many of you. How can Williamson decry the misappropriation of MLK and his legacy an ignore the administration's domestication of him? The president makes it about a day of "service" and not justice. And how about the statements from this administration that MLK would approve of the war? How could Williamson miss that?
I don't want holidays simply based on some guy who was picked up because his skin color was black. It's what Dr. King did and what he stood for that counts.
For that matter, Columbus Day is based on some guy who happened to be Italian, and he made an ocean voyage. For this they give him a small parade each year. It happens that Christopher Columbus later had a horrid record of pretty much exterminating the natives on one Caribbean island. That part got left out.
Dr. King was part of a community. They were all brave, all facing trouble, some in greater measure and some in lesser measure. Some of the movement's other members equally died for their beliefs.
Some important contributors never got much recognition. For example, Amelia Boynton was known as the mother of the civil rights movement. Many SCLC organizing meetings were held in her living room. (I'm ignoring her later life activities.) I doubt that any CommonDreams readers have ever heard of her.
Now, Dr. King is long gone. People take Dr. King's fading legacy and say, "He would have supported this war." For that matter they equally take Jesus of Nazareth's legacy and march behind the Cross of Jesus to war and also toward torturing the innocent, which is sick. The Cross was a torture instrument.
By comparison, here is REAL honor.
==In 2004, zoologists Brent E. Hendrixson and Jason E. Bond named a South African species of trapdoor spider in the family Ctenizidae as Stasimopus mandelai, honouring Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa and one of the great moral leaders of our time.== Wikipedia.
That's a love-filled, tough act to follow & swell recompense for 27 years in prison.
Also the United Nations declares 18 July - Nelson's birthday - as an international day on which individuals, communities and organisations are asked to donate 67 minutes to doing something for others, commemorating the 67 years that Nelson Mandela gave to the struggle for social justice. If the thing done for one person takes one minute, you'll need 67 people in a tight queue.
I'm disappointed in what I see as the muddled thinking expressed here in this forum. I think this is a fine essay and much deserving of praise for what it is, regardless of what one may think of what the author--in one's own personal opinion--is or is not.
It makes no sense to apply to others a litmus test of how they might feel or may have felt in the past about Barack Obama as it were some ultimate measure of their credibility--or lack thereof. It isn't.
Feeling betrayed? Get over it.
The fact is, Ms. Williamson is no mere "keyboard revolutionary," a poseur who has the luxury of maintaining the treasured purity of their opinions because they don't have to muss them up through contact with the real world. She is a warrior for love: struggling for peace, fighting to make a space for compassion in American life, and confronting the enemies of love, every day of her life.
That she's out there, acting in the real world, is precisely the point. You have to work with the system as it is in order to change it. You have to take what the system will give you, and if Barack Obama is the best the system will give you for now, you take whatever you can get and push on toward your ultimate goal. Who here really thinks America would be a better country right now if McCain and Palin were running the show?
If the Democratic Party (I know, God help us!) is the best the system has on offer at the moment, then you get out there and work for them and vote for them and never stop working to make them worth working and voting for as you do. The alternatives are unthinkable, if you really stop and think about them. So let's.
Things are worse, much worse with the Democrats in power. Participation and interest in politics have collapsed, and people have been moving to the right in their thinking. This will lead directly to much suffering, and I don't understand how anyone could see that as a good thing.
I know Ms. Williamson, knew her before she became famous and have mutual friends from the old days. She is a bright and interesting person, and she has done what she has done. That does not mean that she is right about the political situation, nor does it mean that her spiritual contributions are of any particular value to the political situation, and it certainly does not mean that she has been out there "doing something" while the rest of us have not and so therefore she should be held immune from criticism while any of us who disgaree with her should be dismissed.
The main things she has been "doing" that others have not is making a ton of money and becoming a celebrity.
Where in the article do I shill for Obama or the Democrats?
@trytostaypositive: who said I missed that?
And why am I on trial here?
Ekobe, I don't know who you are, but I know that you don't know who I am either...and what is most ironic that you don't know what my politics are. The oddity here is that i AGREE with you on most everything. I'm not a centrist Democrat. My latest article on Huff Po, quoted above, shows how I was complaining about the direction of the Obama administration after only a year...sooner than most people were. As someone else posted above, I'm hardly the only person in America who ended up feeling snookered. The commenter who thinks they can "assume" I'll be voting for Obama in 2012 knows neither my heart nor my politics. I don't know who I'll vote for, so I don't know how they do.
I don't mind criticism, nor should I, as long as people are criticizing what I actually say and do. And your criticism is so at odds with my words and actions that I feel no need to even explain myself to you. Progressive politics for me stands for a more compassionate way of viewing the world, and a different way of treating people. And that to me should apply to our personal politics as well. In AA, they speak of "contempt prior to investigation," and that is what I feel has occurred here. Some people have bought into a caricature of me, and are then responding to the caricature rather than to me. I can't control that. But neither do I feel the need to defend against attacks that have nothing to do with the facts, and everything to do with some personal animus that seems to have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with anger of a different sort.
Thanks to those who have posted here. I won't be participating in any further conversation unless it's a genuine and respectful debate. I really don't see why any of us would.
All my best...