Today is the day in the US where we celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. For those of you in other countries who may not be familiar with the legacy of MLK, there is a great lesson plan that you can read on the HP Teacher’s Exchange. I‘ve included the link below. Most of us think about King in terms of civil rights and the end of segregation. In fact, this was only a small portion of what King was about. King’s major focus was for what he called a “socialized” democracy and the redistribution of wealth, not only among the people of the US but among the peoples of the entire world as well. His teachings were considered very radical at the time but would probably be very much in line with what is happening in the US and world today. (To read more about King, follow the link to the HP Teacher’s Exchange: http://h30411.www3.hp.com/articles/viewArticle/p/courseId/23904/Martin_Luther_King_J.htm?webPageId=1000506)
King aside, I have always found the subject of prejudice to be interesting. Why? Because my family is the original American melting pot. I have a cousin (adopted) who is of Latino descent. He used to be of Mexican descent but it’s now politically incorrect to say he’s Mexican anymore which means he’s Latino now. I have a sister who’s adopted who is also of Mexican descent. I have to say Mexican when referring to her because, she’ll whip my backside as she calls herself Mexican – “After all,” she says, “That’s what I am!” I also have a little brother who is Negro – Oops, I mean African-American or was that Black? I can’t keep up with whatever the politically correct term is anymore. My brother says he’s black so I’ll go with that term. If I’ve offended anyone because that is not the current politically correct term, then I’ll pass that on to him that he’s referring to himself incorrectly. We’re a hodgepodge mixture of mongrels that somehow came together and created a really wonderful thing – a family.
Prejudice? Yes, we’ve experienced it. My grandmother lived to be 100 and had a hard time accepting the first adoption of a child from another race. In the culture in which she was raised, it simply wasn’t something that was done. There was no malice involved, but it was hard for her in the beginning to step beyond culture and love “outside-the-box.” In the end, love won as it must always do and she became as color-blind as the rest of us.
So what do I remember about prejudice?
I remember that our babysitter (African-American) was once told to leave a store and only allowed to stay because we were with her and she was on business for “Mrs. Kyle.”
I remember Daddy driving the school bus for the black school because they could not get a driver.
I remember Daddy (who was a teacher) selling a football ticket one night to the parent of one of the players from the opposing team in a small Texas town. The man he sold the ticket to was African-American. Several of the men from the home team jumped him and tried to beat him up.
I remember Daddy riding a bus home from class when we lived in Tennessee. He was tired and without thinking, he sat down in the first available seat. It was occupied by a young black man. Daddy and the young man had to defend themselves against the other men on the bus.
I remember living in Mississippi and one of my parents friends had been active in the civil rights movement. He’d received death threats and had been “marked.” My parents helped smuggle him past the police and out of town. I still remember that night and how our car was not searched only because the back seat was full of what appeared to be sleeping children. I remember how scared my mother was that we’d get caught and how worried she was that the man hidden in the floor board under the blankets would die from breathing too much exhaust fumes. (You could have never pulled this off in one of today’s “smart” cars!)
I remember Daddy and his MG convertible. When we lived in New York at the time and he was supposed to carry the Apple Harvest Festival queen in his beautiful restored vintage convertible. One of the beauty queens from another town was African-American and the person who was supposed to carry her refused to do so. Daddy carried her instead of the harvest festival queen.
I remember going in for a job interview one day and being told that I had outscored everyone on the test and was the top candidate and so they had to interview me but the job was going to a minority. The interview lasted 5 minutes. It took me 45 minutes to drive to the interview.
I remember my parents being told that they were too old when they wanted to adopt their youngest child and going to court to fight the age discrimination. They won.
I remember working for a man for a while from another country where women do not enjoy the privileges that they do here in the US. Without going into more detail, he was never able to step outside the box of his culture and it was not a successful working relationship. I no longer work for him. The experience, sadly, has left me very tentative in dealing with persons from that country and culture.
I remember turning 50 in October and being unemployed by January. As soon as interviewers realize that I’m 50, the interview ends abruptly.
I remember working in a law firm where were had several openly homosexual clients. One of them was dying from AIDs. I was warned by one partner to be “nice” because I was an evangelical Christian and they were afraid of how I might respond. Ironically, I was the one that they always asked for when they called in on the phone and was the only one that I know of who ever shook hands with them. Perhaps the discussion should have been given to the “liberal” and “tolerant” members of the staff.
We all have our stories. Prejudice isn’t just about skin color. It’s not just about age, or race. It comes in many shapes and forms – age, race, religion, disability. Will we ever get past it? Personally, I doubt that we’ll ever live in a Utopia that is completely free of these types of issues. Certainly we’ve at least come to a point where a little red-headed, blue-eyed white woman and a dark haired gentleman can adopted a little Black boy and have him be the delight of all our lives. Perhaps all that is really needed is to change one life and one heart at a time.
Tags: jr., martin luther king, MLK day, prejudice, racism, segregation