Tough Minds, Tender Hearts, Moral Arcs, and Science Fiction: MLK Day 2019

Source: https://angiegreaves.com/martin-luther-king-jr/

“We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. , Strength to Love (1963)


January 21, 2019 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the United States.  It has been my tradition on this blog to write something every year in commemoration of MLK Day, which is my favorite holiday.

But why continue to celebrate a single, complicated man who died more than 50 years ago, a man whose message has been watered down, commodified, exploited, and misunderstood (sometimes deliberately) by many on both the left and the right?  Aren't there more important things going on?

We have a government shutdown going on here in the US, which means that hundreds of thousands of government employees are not being paid.  Here in my city of Chattanooga, TN, black residents are being pushed out of their neighborhoods by gentrification while "economic development" leaves many of our most economically precarious citizens behind.  This pattern seems to be the trend in almost all American cities today (yes, even liberal, Northern cities like my native Twin Cities, MN).  Black Americans continue to be disproportionately beaten and killed by police and are incarcerated at higher rates than any other racial group besides Native Americans.  War, unrest, and hatred continue around the world, from war in Yemen to Hindu nationalism in India.

In the midst of this continued turmoil and injustice, careful thinking about King's ideas is more important than ever.  (Not just thinking, of course.  As King demonstrated, action is required, too.) By way of explanation, let me give summaries of my posts from previous years.


2015: A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart (Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!)

My very first MLK Day post on this blog dealt with my favorite MLK quote.  I also explained why MLK Day is my favorite holiday.

A world with more toughminded, tenderhearted people is a world worth working toward.  It’s a world I hope will exist in the future.  That’s why Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is my favorite holiday.  It is a holiday of hope.

See more in the post here.


2016: MLK, Social Justice, and Science Fiction

In 2016 I decided to think a bit about how King's life and legacy might speak to the sorts of topics I usually consider on this blog regarding science fiction.

I remembered that King once talked Nichelle Nichols into staying on as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek.  I also recalled being introduced to the idea of "visionary fiction" in an anthology called Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements; according to this idea science fictional thinking about new ways of being is an essential part of working for justice.

I concluded...

To envision Lt. Uhura's future is to imagine a future different from our present in many ways, but one that we might aim for.  Finding the path from our present, with all its injustices and vicissitudes, to a more just and equitable future is what King lived and died for.  As King and many others have noted, science fiction, or at least science fictional thinking, is a key part of struggles for social justice.

So this MLK Day, maybe in addition to the celebrations, days of service, and parades, we should all watch Star Trek and think science fictionally about the future!

More in the post. 


2017: MLK Day 2017: The Moral Arc, Philosophy, and Science Fiction

In 2017, spurred by the debacle of the 2016 election, I decided to focus on the oft-cited and oft-misunderstood quote, "Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

We can't just sit back and let things take their course.  King (and his inspiration, Theodore Parker) meant that the struggle for a better world will not always move in a straight line.  It may be held back.  It may veer in an unhelpful direction.  But we shouldn't despair for long; doing so is a sure way to fail.

And later...

But as King says, what we need is not love without power, but love implementing justice.  We don't need more well-wishes without action or moral imagination without moral backbone. 

It's easy for us, especially for relatively privileged white people like me, to say, "that's too bad, but it's not my problem.  What can you do?"  It's easy, in other words, to feel love without the exercise of power.

It is more difficult, but nonetheless the right thing to do, to be inspired by King to couple love and power to create justice.  That arc will need a lot of bending in the coming years.  We'd better get to work. 

See more in the full post.


2018: Beyond "MLK-lite": MLK Day 2018

Last year I was inspired by a quote from King's daughter, Bernice King, about the dangers of "MLK-lite."

The encouraging of "MLK-lite" is one of the regrettable effects of the King holiday, what Cornel West and others have also called "the Santa-Clausification" of King.  We choose a few inspiring quotes, often taken out of context, to turn King into a non-offensive feel-good motivational speaker.  We conveniently forget that he was jailed dozens of times, blocked traffic, spoke out against the Vietnam War, empathized with rioters, worked with organized labor, and died in Memphis while supporting a sanitation workers' strike.

But worst of all in my opinion, we forget his ideas.  We turn nonviolence (a specific philosophy as challenging as it is inspiring) into a fluffy, Disneyfied toothless individual sentiment.  We (especially, it must be admitted, my fellow white Americans) turn King's trenchant critiques of racism, classism, materialism, economic injustice, and militarism into "I don't see race" and "I judge everyone according to the content of their character."

More in the original post.


2019...

I should also mention that last summer I visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis at the site of King's assassination, which is something I had been wanting to do for some time.  I greatly recommend it if you get to Memphis, although the museum itself has been the subject of some controversy.

So, I think, despite all of our problems today, the work and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. are still worth considering.  But, as another hero of mine, LeVar Burton, would say, you don't have to take my word for it.  You should read King's works for yourself!

I included a few recommendations in my 2018 post.  I particularly recommend "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  Aside from being one of the finest philosophical exhortations to moral action ever written, the letter does quite a bit to bust the myths of "MLK-lite," starting with the fact that it was written in jail after King was arrested for "parading without a permit" (something that also happened to five activists at the Chattanooga Women's March this weekend, which shows that these activists are ironically in the company of the man some of these women's fiercest critics are celebrating this weekend).

So, there's a lot left to do.  And celebrating King's legacy ought to give us food for thought.  But if you need a short musical break, I can also recommend Stevie Wonder's classic, "Happy Birthday," which is a staple of MLK Day celebrations around the country (the version in the video below is also for Nelson Mandela for an added bonus).

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2019!