"Soft focused platitudes" does not put food on the table, gas in the tank or pay the doctor's bills. Nor do those obligatory emails on the holiday rise to the importance of MLK's life and legacy, especially in times like these. "I have been to the mountaintop" was not a platitude, it was a prophecy. MLK was not just a leader of a movement, he was a Christ-like figure who walked among us and, like Jesus, we murdered him. The "we" I speak of is the strain of white nationalism that has always run through this country but had thinned out before the internet and through many protests, marches, letter-writing and good trouble, but mostly by changing and adding laws. We know that people won't change (unless it is easy, like a shot to lose weight), so the institutions and the objects must be changed to make us safe. When those changes are in the hands of madmen and Nazis, no one is safe.
I hope you sent this directly to DBS as well—as a letter from a constituent. Thank you for articulating all the emotions that passed inchoately through my head as I read his message yesterday. Good trouble, girl!
"Soft focused platitudes" does not put food on the table, gas in the tank or pay the doctor's bills. Nor do those obligatory emails on the holiday rise to the importance of MLK's life and legacy, especially in times like these. "I have been to the mountaintop" was not a platitude, it was a prophecy. MLK was not just a leader of a movement, he was a Christ-like figure who walked among us and, like Jesus, we murdered him. The "we" I speak of is the strain of white nationalism that has always run through this country but had thinned out before the internet and through many protests, marches, letter-writing and good trouble, but mostly by changing and adding laws. We know that people won't change (unless it is easy, like a shot to lose weight), so the institutions and the objects must be changed to make us safe. When those changes are in the hands of madmen and Nazis, no one is safe.
Send his message to Reader’s Digest or Hallmark to see if it needs to be shortened … add some sparkle ✨
I hope you sent this directly to DBS as well—as a letter from a constituent. Thank you for articulating all the emotions that passed inchoately through my head as I read his message yesterday. Good trouble, girl!
Excellent post, really liked it! Tx!!!
All of your posts are so enlightening and to the point. How do you have time to research even one (1) of them a day?