MLK Day

I meant to write this earlier but oh well. It's a few days late but I think still close enough that it's relevant.

What MLK Jr. did for our country and its racial politics is still profound to this day. He should always have a day of remembrance so we will talk about it each year and hopefully never forget. We all need to remember to treat people equally no matter race, color, creed, etc.

With that said I do have one bone to pick. I was listening to NPR that morning and they talked about a really great program where blacks and Jews go through a course together of literally following in the steps of Martin Luther King Jr. and the last day of the course they end up where he was fatally shot. I don't have an issue with any of this and I can't find a link to the news story. What really bothers me is that I felt like the language that they used in the piece was that since Jews have also been an oppressed people that they share a common understanding with the oppression that blacks have gone through.

While I obviously don't claim to be either black or Jewish I don't like the singling out. I know I will never experience a day through the eyes of someone that is black or Jewish but how does that make me less? How does it come to mean that I can't understand oppression? I have always worked so hard in my life to treat everyone equally and give everyone a fair shake. I do this (I'm sure I don't always succeed) because it's exactly what I want.

I almost kind of feel that this story goes against what MLK Jr. was fighting for. He wanted equality for everyone and for everyone to have a shared common understanding. I just think when you  gear the message toward specific sects of people you lose the integrity of that. It's also how I hate when people automatically jump to an -ism (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.) card. I personally feel like MLK Jr. wanted us to to do the best to understand where people are/were coming from instead of jumping to the defense mechanism of our worst thoughts.

I guess another recent example was when Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers supposedly snubbed Jan Cavanaugh when he was at the airport on the way to his plane. Instead of understanding the circumstances it was automatically leapt to that he was such an a**hole to a cancer patient. No matter that he had already a few days before spent quite a bit of time talking to her and signing her memorabilia.

I believe that you get back what you put out and this is also why I believe in reincarnation. My main feeling (and I try every day) is that we should all find out someone's motivations before we assume the worst. People, over all have the best intentions because they want the best to come back to them too.