They're out to get us.

I remember the first time I realized he was not a hero to everyone.

An MLK Day project we did in 2012 - a decade ago.

I was college-age, and on a bus, sitting and conversing with an elderly gentlemen with the ubiquitous baseball hat - I possess a strong suspicion that if he were alive post-2016, I could easily guess the color of what his cap might be, based on where he drove the conversation.

In a nutshell, he explained to me, with moderated tone, casually and confidently, how Martin Luther King, Jr. was in fact, no hero, but a rabble-rouser, an inciter, a Communist, and a terrible person who was trying to tear the country apart.

What’s made me replay this conversation so many times since is the way that he directly said what I’ve heard a number of people say or write, in inferences and dog whistling language, since.

When we think of MLK and the way he fought, we do so often in generic terms, in heroic terms, in a collective remembrance of him fighting for everyone, for all children, for all races.

This happened in my parents’ childhood. These things, these Civil Rights legacies we talk about, these happened in the decade before I was born. This is not a far-off time. And this is the part that’s saddening and chilling to me now.

In the narrative about MLK, he’s a hero. Which is great. A flawed hero, but definitely a hero. And what does a hero need on their journey?

Conflict.

So if he was the protagonist in this shared narrative, then who were the antagonists?

Here’s the chilling part. They are not all long-gone and they have not all somehow undergone a beautiful change of heart where they finally accepted that all God’s children should live and play and work together in equality.

So who are they, and where are they, and what are they saying now?

They are us. They are a big part of what still makes up this country, and here’s the thing:

The message used is the same one the antagonists of MLK’s day used to defend the indefensible.

Words of fear.
Words to separate - “…they are out to get you, they are out to get your women, they are out to get your children, they are out to take your jobs, they are out to get you because they hate you.”
Words that twist the Gospel and somehow subvert into being a message that controls rather than sets free.
Words that take the message, the teachings, the life of Jesus and turn them upside down into a bizarre defense of Christianity filled with asterisks.

Who are the villains in the MLK story?

They’re us. Maybe not actively me, maybe not actively you, maybe not you over there. But they are words and ideas that convey a message that is the same one spewed at Dr. King and protestors of the ‘60s:

You’re causing a ruckus. You’re not wanted. Get your vile change out of here. We’re good with the way things are. Well, yes, everybody’s equal, but we don’t need the government to get involved with that equality stuff…so if you bring that stuff around here, we are justified to call you whatever we want, and we are justified to do whatever we need to do to protect our families and our communities and our way of life. So stop this nonsense, let’s just get along, and let’s get things back to how they used to be: peaceful and perfect.

The words differ but the embedded message is coded into so much.

Yes, we should, out of respect for those who have fought for so much and sacrificed so greatly, we should applaud and acknowledge the progress that has been made.

No, we should not, out of respect for the same, act as if the lessons from then are not every bit as relevant and urgent now.

We still got room to grow. We gotta.

Things that occurred on MLK Day

I mean no disrespect by including some of these activities; not all are correlated with this day in particular; I have gratitude for the reality that our children are growing up in a safe environment where they have the freedom, autonomy, and luxury to spend much of their time both learning and playing; something that not every child has, but that every child deserves.

1. We kicked off the day with a special worship about being lights in the darkness, and I soundtracked it with The Walking Dead theme song.

2. Our five-year old tried gum for the first time, and what you think might have happened is exactly what happened.

3. Watched Kid President, MLK Special on YouTube

4. Listening to Mahalia Jackson and various rousing renditions of her gospel; infused with contralto love, a deep reverent joy, and active support for civil rights for all God’s children.

5. An 11-year old walking his goat; a happening that was symbiotic until it wasn’t. There is some sort of metaphor or symbol in there for today: one entity pulling and tugging and trying to move forward, the other standing stubborn and refusing to budge from their entrenched position.

6. We spoke of the American philosopher John Rawls and ideas of fairness - in other words, what is fair? How do different people come to luck into different types of lives, and is there any notion of fairness we can agree on, while also acknowledging people’s different situations and abilities? A Wikipedia entry puts it better: he posited “…a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberately select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy.”

7. Something else that’s not fair: me losing three consecutive games of Mancala to our 5-year old. For posterity, this is not me going easy on him. It is maddening, it is frustrating, I don’t like it. It’s not fair.