Dr. Martin Luther King’s Connectedness

Today is the day we commemorate a doctor, a visionary, a leader, a reverend, a King. And as I have reflected on what this day means in this particular year — at this moment in time — I am drawn to Dr. King’s worldview of connectedness, not so ironically at a time when we are all profoundly disconnected, physically and otherwise, from one another.

Dr. King, in his infinite wisdom and courage, developed an ethos of profound connectedness. He emphasized the linkage between the causes of racism, war, and poverty, and preached the universal connectedness of all peoples and movements. Writer Drew Dellinger observes, “King identified systemic links between social justice issues that were largely viewed as separate, fusing them into a unified critique that fundamentally challenged the modern system.”

It is my belief that most, if not all, of our societal ills come from our failure to see, acknowledge, or engage in connectedness. This continued failure has driven us to this, yet another dark moment in history. I also believe that a broad acceptance of our connectedness will shepherd us through these dark days and toward a better future for us all.

For the last 10 months, we have lived in a world that has upended the norms of the connective tissues of our society: from the most basic greeting of a handshake to holding hands with an aging parent (or even a dying one) or having a finger wrapped by the grasping hand of a newborn nephew. Breaking bread with family, drinks with friends, lunches with colleagues, pulsating to live music with strangers, ceremonies marking the end of a school year or the beginning of a marriage, or services commemorating a life well lived. Or even simply sharing planes, trains, and automobiles with others, all connected only by the promise of arrival at a singular destination. 

In that past life, the internet only complemented, not supplanted, our real-world connections with digital spaces that attempted to bridge gaps in geography and physical distance.

But did we ever pause to ask whether those connective tissues were really connecting us at all? Loneliness was a public health epidemic and for many, isolation was suffocating, with increasing rates of depression and suicide. Injustice marched on as if nothing would stop it, with children gunned down in schools, people of color gunned down in streets, with victims of sexual harassment or assault not to be believed or have their rape kits tested or perpetrators brought to justice. Communities lived on the margins; families not able to make the margins meet. Children went hungry, living in food deserts in the middle of concrete jungles. Temperatures rose as convenience and disposable ways of living increasingly disconnected us from our critical role in the ecosystem of our earth. 

And yet, the internet created a digital hub where those fortunate enough to have access to it, could connect with humanity across the globe in an instant. Those of us, particularly those standing in and with privilege, could stretch our capacity for understanding and build empathy by reading or watching or listening to stories of those whose lives were not at all like our own. If injustice occurred, the internet provided a greater chance for not only widespread knowledge of that injustice, but also the capacity to take some action to address it.

I think often of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, in which he describes the mutuality and connectivity of our world, long before the internet could have even been conceived:

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. 

I can only imagine what Dr. King would have thought of the rise of the internet, of the capacity to share news of injustices but moreover, the profound opportunity to mobilize and take action to address those injustices anywhere, which threatened justice everywhere.

If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that we have taken for granted our capacity to connect with one another, and in doing so, have put our collective future at risk.

Each and every day, COVID-19 is revealing injustice, racism, sexism, bigotry, systemic poverty, and an increasingly widening rift in our society. COVID-19 is not causing these inequities, but rather revealing them, showing us just how much we as a society were willing to tolerate. It is also exacerbating them, showing us how rapidly they can be made worse. The faces and names of the over 2 million global lives lost reveal this -- many of them elders, people of color, the poor, health care workers, and those who didn’t have access to proper health care or protective measures. 

On the other hand, COVID-19 is also revealing just how interconnected we are, how we are indeed “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” After all, this dread virus has spread as rapidly as it has because of our connection. Community health, often relegated to a subset of health experts or academics, is now viscerally felt and understood because it - or rather, community sickness - is upon us in increasingly more dramatic ways. 

COVID-19 is changing the digital mediums that connected us in the past. As we now use the internet in new and necessary ways, we are also starting to see inklings of a shift in how we use our usual platforms, as conferences, concerts, and classes are now held through video platforms.

But this change in how we connect digitally is cosmetic at best. On the ever-growing list of things that we must learn and apply coming out of COVID, lies the unfulfilled promise of the World Wide Web. The internet has so far failed in its capacity to serve as a window to the world - for us all. It fails us in both the platforms available, to push us into new communities and new experiences. It fails because it rewards narcissistic, inauthentic and often tyrannical behavior and because it serves as a Petri dish for echo chambers. And finally, it fails because not all have access.

Coming out of COVID will provide us not just with the opportunity to rebuild our world, but also the opportunity to rebuild our worldview: 

What will you do differently as we come out of this time? 

Will we return to comfort, to the known, to isolation, to the myopic life that we used to live? Or we will use a new, connected perspective to rise to the responsibility that comes with our newfound freedom? 

Norms have been challenged and some have even been upended. We are duty-bound to create not just the new normal, but the next normal. One that is predicated on the reality - the mandate - of our connectedness and our mutuality, and one that truly serves liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness, for us all.