“It has to become dark before we see the stars.”
January 19, 2006
On Monday I went to Dr. King’s birthday party. It has taken me all week to write this. To overcome the static within myself. I have written this continuously since. I think this is what I want to say. It is hard to say something fresh. Better writers and speakers have written their observations. It is also hard to expose my heart about this. Again, this man was genuinely loved in the country and humans being mostly the same, have said everything that seems important. So I think we need to keep saying it. Until we know, without a doubt, that his words and his dream have come to pass.
“It has to become dark before we see the stars.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 3, 1968
I listened to an 11 year old recite these words today. Standing in the cold. A blustery frigid day. Ten degrees below normal after two months of 15 degrees above.
There were no charged speeches or calls to action. I think pertain are tired of standing in the dark, watching stars, the bad ones last, seemingly, forever, and the righteous stars leave too soon . Waiting for light, waiting for day; I feel I have waited a lifetime, maybe longer.
Are we waiting for another Martin? I do not think that possible. He was special. His words were beyond his time and struggle; words of the world to aspire to. Those words are all that people want and they are all people need. I think the overall message I am left with, and have for many years believed, is that we can all be Dr. King. We each, individually, can change the world around us. Whether by tongue, or deed, or wordy finger tips on waves of copper wire. I think we must make our actions as strong as our words. We must follow through. We must, as much as we can, live the words we preach and believe in.
Dr. King’s work remains unfinished, undone and incomplete. This is not a bad thing. It is the call for our own action, in many capacities and levels, to do what we can, when we can and for whom ever needs it. Not just for those who sound, look, think like us.
His words, if they are to last the eternity they were meant for, must pertain to everyone. The European, the undocumented worker, Women, Hispanic, Asians, Native People, and the entirety of the Gay community which belongs to all races, all nations and all religions. This is the scope, the range, the totality of humanity, and one, not being better than the other, demands that all be treated equally and fairly.
How have we mislaid that? The oppressed of any government and time, if they stand together, can immediately change and alter the direction of that nation. The poor of these groups have more in common with each other than they do with the rich of their individual communities.
This is a time of coalition building. The same people who wish to negate Affirmative Action in CA. and who want to make second class citizens of every Queer in America and who will never, until forced, honor the equality of African-Americans in this country and who wants one large corporate oligarchy run by the USA to dominate and control the world, who punch holes in the ozone for the express purpose of establishing military dominance in space, who hires the world at $2/day to break the back of it’s own citizens. These people want to see us all cowed and docile and mistrustful and spiteful of each other.
It is imperative that we begin to work together to form a more perfect union. Sounds really hokey, ay? That’s because we have been convinced by our own government that it is not possible. That’s fooey, you all know it.
I think America is under as dark a night as she has ever seen. Is it dark enough to bring us together, quit squabbling and fighting over the last piece of pie? I do not know. I hope, now and then, that it is, but at other times the effort seems too enormous, our numbers too small.
Get involved, register to vote. Seek change where and how you can. Know that when you stand up for the rights of others you are reinforcing the strength and integrity of your own rights. Let?s create new recipes for new pies that allow all of us a piece. Let’s learn to share.
