Martin Luther King Jr. spoke often near the end of his life
about the twin evils of racism and poverty. In 1967 he wrote, “Racism is no
mere American phenomenon. Its vicious grasp knows no geographical boundaries.
In fact, racism and its perennial ally – economic exploitation – provide the
key to understanding most of the international complications of this
generation.”
And our own.
I often wonder what King would say if he were alive today
and able to survey the American political, social and economic landscape. What
would he make of our for-profit prison complex that preys disproportionately on
people of color? Or an economy rigged to work tirelessly to enrich the
wealthiest Americans at the expense of the many?
King would see systematic political corruption buoyed by the
highest court in the land, and a two-party system that utterly fails to address
the needs of the citizenry.
He would see democracy deliberately organized as a crass
game of money and influence buying; frontal assaults on the Voting Rights Act;
endless foreign wars that drain the nation’s resources.
I think King would be profoundly disappointed in President
Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder and the opportunities they have
squandered to recalibrate the scales of fairness and justice.
King might wonder about the whiteness of Hollywood, though I
doubt the narrow commercial calculations of the studio chieftains would
surprise him.
King spoke of dreams but he was also a pragmatist, under no
illusions about the difficulty of prying privilege from the grip of the
powerful. King spent his too-short life pushing a boulder up a slippery slope.
He was only 39 years old when an assassin’s bullet found him in Memphis; the
man who preached peace and non-violence died a violent death.
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