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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2010
Prisoner's view of Martin Luther King Jr.
Forty-two years ago in April, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. A year earlier, in 1967, he mentioned that unemployment was 4% for Euro-Americans, but among New Afrikans it was 8.4%. Then, as now, unemployment for New Afrikans is double that for Euro-Americans, if not more. Today the ranks of the unemployed are made up of diverse ethnicities. More Euro-Americans are unemployed than in recent memory, along with vast numbers of minorities, immigrants and youth of all nationalities. These diverse forces create a frightening specter for the capitalists who recognize that labor must be put to work before it gains consciousness of its own power and becomes a threat to capital's survival.
In April of 1967, ten days after Dr. King gave his historic speech at the Riverside Church in New York City when he came out publicly and denounced the Vietnam War, he delivered another speech at Stanford University in California entitled "The Other America."
It can be argued that this other America was hidden, had been pushed to the very periphery of U.S. society and set adrift in poverty. The Civil Rights Bill in 1964 and the Voting Rights Bill in 1965 could not change the facts on the ground. There was de facto racial discrimination in the North and other remnants of segregationist policies in the South. Dr. King's speech shines a light on the social contradiction of the two Americas.
Dr. King described these two Americas: one a bastion of privilege where access to wealth fosters humankind's inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the other, inhabited by those who by their skin color are denied access to the very subsistence of life, the necessities for full development of human beings. Dr. King could give this same speech today.
The mission of the Civil Rights Movement, which Dr. King led, was to make America whole, no longer a divided nation where wealth and class distinguished one segment of society from the other of want and poverty. Dr. King called for the spirit of Brotherhood, morally guided by the philosophical belief of humans needing each other to be human. But Dr. King could not find a tactic to overcome the capitalist mentality of security through owning property.
Today we still confront the humongous challenge that Dr. King was committed to overcoming: the set of existing social conditions that defined the two Americas, which he so vividly described in 1967.
The actions of the financial sector, the cause of the current recession, have become objectionable to the working class and other disadvantaged folks who are bearing the brunt of economic dissolution and now find themselves adrift in total economic insecurity, having lost their jobs, homes, retirement funds, etc. It adds insult to injury to watch their hard-earned tax dollars go to those responsible for their hardships.
It is this mass of unemployed workers and others in the country who are dissatisfied with the ineptness of the status quo to provide an economic environment where people's needs can be met. They decided to cast a vote for Obama because he represented change. Unfortunately, Obama has not been able to deliver, due to the need to submit to the logic of capital.
We hear from some of the old leaders of the Civil Rights Movement that Obama's presidency is the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream. One can relate to that sentiment and perhaps Dr. King would have been delighted to witness America overcoming some of its racial prejudices enough to elect a New Afrikan to the highest office in the land. But it is hard to think Dr. King's personal satisfaction with Obama's victory would have blinded him to the still unfinished work ahead. Dr. King's dream was, at its core, an appeal to the whole of humankind throughout this world. He saw the multitude of humanity inextricably linked. Human beings, regardless of race or ethnicity, need to learn what it means to be human toward each other. Otherwise social integration is meaningless. Just having a New Afrikan in the White House does not complete Dr. King's dream.
--Faruq
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