MLK Day, 2012 01/16/2012
 
Dr. King's words are honest, intelligent, and full of integrity...perhaps someday a public figure will emerge to lead our country to the next level of liberty and justice for all.  The issues are complex, and the specifics of solutions to our problems are different for different people.  King's leadership challenges us all to do what we can to contribute to justice for the people in our circles of influence. 
I lie awake in bed next to my son tonight, with King's words burning in my brain, in my conscience, in my heart.  I remember when outrage at injustice took hold in my heart near the end of High School.  I read A Call to Conscience, a collection of King's speeches, and listened incessantly to recordings of his speeches.  I shed many tears in my car listening to MLK. 
Now, I think about how my sons will grow up seeing the world.  Surely if we stay in Chicago, they will grow up in fantastic diversity.  Everywhere I go in this city, people of myriad backgrounds share the same space on public transportation, in restaurants, in clubs; people of myriad backgrounds work the same jobs, from cab drivers to coffee shop servers to jazz musicians to teachers. 
But this is also a time when economic injustice has been normalized.  And while the Occupy movement has brought the issue into the realm of public scrutiny, the surrounding discourse is full of fallacies.  The most insidious of these is the belief that everyone gets what they deserve.  There are three concepts that can justify such a belief: 1) that a hierarchy of human evolution determines the rankings of prosperity (either in a survival-of-the-fittest or eugenicist sense), or 2) that God, or some governing force, metes out justice in a way that cannot be questioned, and 3) that each person comes to earth with some measure of predestination ("karma" or fate), and there's nothing that can be done to alter it.  I admit that any or all of these concepts may actually contain nuggets of truth.  And yet, a person like MLK, and a movement like the Civil Rights Movement, or the Women's Rights Movement, or any of the transformative movements on the planet, prove that no circumstances are unchangeable.  The power of social transformation has again and again proven real.  The injustices that seem so entrenched can be dug out by the roots to make way for a better world.    
How am I a part of transforming the world?  This question burns in my conscience throughout my day-to-day life.  I am making over $50,000 in a year, yet still needing financial help from family, and going into debt, while living a lifestyle that is comfortable but far less than extravagant.  How can any family living at poverty level make it?  And so many people, whether they get $7/hour or $200,000/year, work SO much.  We all have such limited time to enjoy being together with family, to take up constructive or creative pursuits, to volunteer our energy in ways that could help others. 
Why all the work? 
Part of the answer must be because we live with the anxiety of not being certain that our basic needs are met -- housing, food, healthcare, transportation, providing for children, etc.  So we work and work and work to provide...and we can take pride when we are able to provide.  But is this really our goal as human beings?  These are just our basic needs.  What about connecting with others in meaningful and fulfilling ways?  What about seeing the world, experiencing different cultures, languages, geographies?  What about building things with our hands, growing things, mending things?  What about going deep into our own spiritual journeys?  Until we make enough money to have enough time and enough energy, so many important elements of human life compete for tiny cracks of time in our days, little spurts of extra energy we can muster after another long day of bringing home the bacon.  And if we don't bring home the bacon, we could lose everything -- our housing, good food, good healthcare, good transportation, and the ability to provide for our children.  This is the reality we live in in the USA right now.  Many, many, millions of people, teeter on the edge.  I know I feel the pressure...
And it's because so many things are backwards!  Terrible catch-22's at every turn.  You can't make money off of interest until you have lots of money.  Where are the 10% return savings accounts for people with $100 dollars to save, or $1000?  You can't get a good job until you get experience, but you can't get experience until you get a good job.  Where are the mentoring programs?  12 years of public school, and we never get taught how to grow our own food, build our own house, mend our own clothes, let alone create a budget and balance a checkbook.  When will the endless jumping through intellectual hoops be replaced by meaningful, experiential learning?  
I know there are millions of people doing great things every day for the people in their lives.  And people who are struggling pull themselves up by the bootstraps, receive help and support from family and friends, or receive generous charity, and persevere through tough times.  I take heart.
But I also own my outrage at the injustice of economic disparity.  Money is paper, but needs are daily reality.  And when basic needs go unmet for so many people, something is wrong. 
May we all find ways to confront injustice in our lives, and the lives of those around us.
 


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