Death of Illusions

"So in a sense we are all participants in that horrible act that tarnished the image of our nation. By our silence, by our willingness to compromise principle, by our constant attempt to cure the cancer of racial injustice with the vaseline of gradualism, by our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes."

• Martin Luther King Jr. on the assassination of President Kennedy

MLK was a pacifist and a #Diversity hero. While he's no longer here with us in body, his words and teachings are. They are no less applicable today and sadly they are also no less necessary. Chapter 21, Death of Illusions in The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., covers a particularly gruesome period when a church in Birmingham is bombed and four young black girls are killed, three months later JFK is assassinated. 

Pacifism is often misinterpreted as a sort of passive nonresistance to evil but there is nothing passive about pacifism. True pacifism is "a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love" (King, Stride Towards Freedom). In Death of Illusions King leaves no room for misinterpretation, we are all culpable. By tolerating hate and violence, by our inaction, we are all responsible the deaths of JFK, and similarly the death George Floyd, the US Capital Insurgence, the handcuffing of a 6-year old black girl in Mississauga in 2016 and in all the other egregious forms of discrimination that continue to be perpetuated on marginalized populations.  

But how could we possibly be guilty of any of the horrific events mentioned above? We are guilty when we see discrimination and say nothing. We are guilty when we ignore the inequality all around us. When we pass the a homeless individual and look the other way because acknowledging injustices all around us is uncomfortable, we are guilty. We are guilty when we pretend not to know that 40 First Nations communities across Canada are still under boil-water advisories. We are guilty when we reluctantly acknowledge the boil-water advisories but do not express outrage. And we are guilty when we express outrage but take no further steps to influence those that have the power and money to make change happen.

We are also guilty when we don't acknowledge the micro-aggressions that occur all around us. And we are guilty when we observe them but say nothing, either because: 

1. We don't know what to say,
2. It might make the dinner party/meeting uncomfortable, 
3. We are too angry to formulate a non-emotional response and therefore remain silent

So, we are all guilty and I expect we will all remain guilty, I know I will anyway. That's an awfully long and overwhelming list of things I am guilty of and therefore responsible for taking action to change. I can't do it all, but I can try to do better.  

I will try to pay more attention and speak up when I observe comments or actions that are harmful to others or to me. When the comments that hurt me personally are made out of ignorance and/or unconscious bias rather than hate, and when they are coming from someone who I respect, whose opinion I value then I will do my best to find my voice and my words and have that uncomfortable conversation. And I know that's not much, it won't do anything to prevent any potential violence that might occur this week or next, and it won't do anything to resolve the boil-water advisories. But every time I find my voice to speak up, even in small ways I find that my voice gets louder and with it, so likely does my degree of influence and power to effect change.

The teachings of Martin Luther King are often sugar-coated, presumably such that they don’t make the majority of us so uncomfortable that we ignore them altogether. He was a radical and a disruptive force but ultimately his message was one of love. John Lewis put it better than I can so I'll finish this off with a quote from him.

“But I’ve also always held the belief that what he left us — the way of hope, the way of peace, the way of love, a philosophy and discipline rooted in nonviolence — cannot be taken away. These things are eternal.”

• Congressman John Lewis on MLK's Legacy

Reference materials:

Read The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. Chapter 21: Death of Illusions here: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/chapter-21-death-illusions

How Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World, Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xabWOU6tU-M&t=29s