Over the past four years, and past four months, with each new disturbing piece of reality connected to this outgoing administration and each new assault on democracy, I find myself asking, what would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say?
So, I turned to his writing.
In our time of division and bitterness he says: “The one thing about bitterness is its blindness. Bitterness has not the capacity to make the distinction between some and all.”
In response to division he replied: “Whenever Pharaoh wanted to keep the slaves in slavery, he kept them fighting among themselves.”
To the extremism of today we can turn to his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 1963: “So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but rather what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”
His answer for so many of the struggles during his lifetime and one can apply to all of today’s is love. “We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love; we must meet physical force with soul force.”
And I think he might say, spend less time honoring me. There is still too much justice work to be done. Honor me by carrying on the work I believed in. Too many people need you.
I’m Dan Kenney and this is my perspective.
