Just over a week ago America celebrated the birthday (albeit two days late) of the man that made this statement. Considering the post September 11 paranoia that still grips a fair portion of the media and the general public, it is hard to imagine such an extremist standpoint coming from one of America's most venerated figures and yet it did. In a culture where xenophobes peddle fears about halal food and "creeping sharia"in the name of God, it begs the question whether Martin Luther King Jr's message is any less relevant or confronting than it was in the 1960s.
Sadly discussions of Dr King's legacy are spoken about as a done deal and not a work in progress. This highlights exactly what the impact of his death was; a loss of zeal and focus. The greatest strength of true leadership is also the source of its' fragility. Leaders are the very embodiment of the vision of the cause and when their leadership dies (be that assassination or ethical compromise) so does the singular purpose. Great leaders like Martin Luther King provide a distilled collective voice and when they are gone it evaporates and becomes a nebulous and diluted dialogue.
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
To this day when you hear his words there is life in them and the perpetual challenge to lead a better life and make the world a better place. This is why it is sickening to see his legacy subverted, the ideals of which he spoke are not the fodder for motivational t-shirts. His raison d'etre was not to build his personal brand and yet he has been turned into MLK. I guess MLK removes the negative out spoken, black man association from the brand like disguising the Southern fried origins of KFC. Hopefully we will see the release of the semi-biographical BIM (Black In Men) starring Will Smith as MLK providing a safe environment for alien races in the United States. You can't help but wonder he would think about the "MLK inspired" black and gold sneakers worn by NBA stars in his honour.
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
In this statement Martin Luther King expressed a world view that is completely at odds with the USA's ever increasing fascination with winning. The notion that "labor" or struggle has dignity is loser talk in a nation in the grip of Super Bowl fever. When in the first round of the NFL play-offs the lowly ranked Seattle Seahawks defeated last years champions (New Orleans Saints) a commentator remarked that "America loves the underdog." A more accurate statement would have been the America loves underdogs that win. The focus on the victor is so extreme that post game coverage almost completely erases the memory of the vanquished no matter how valiant their on field endeavour was.
As the television spectacle of the Super Bowl fast approaches (last years game drew the largest television audience in American history) another title race is gaining momentum. American Idol has been given a face lift (or several with the addition cosmetic surgery ravaged Steven Tyler) with new judges (J Lo and the Aerosmith front man) but no amount of tucks and botox can conceal the emptiness of this title. Despite this, season after season thousands of Americans circle the blocks to audition for opportunity to win their way into a creative and fiscally asphyxiating contract on a major label that will ultimately resign them to the musically irrelevant scrap heap with all of the other Idol winners. Success has no objective parameters relating to quality or excellence it is all about winning.
While this dichotomy of winners and losers remains the discourse to describe any field of endeavour there will be no nobility in striving or struggle. Consequently this creates little to no incentive "to rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." Considering the hardships being endured by the majority of the US population they are by their own societies' definition losers.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." This remains to this day one of the most beautiful and profoundly challenging statements of democracy. When a nation is built on such a foundation, equality is a non-negotiable and the pursuit of it remains a ceaseless quest.
Recently the case of the man with the golden voice highlighted the fact that the truth that all men are created equal is clearly no longer self evident. In a truly great democratic society homelessness should be viewed as an intolerable condition. Rights cease to be unalienable and democratic when a society works on a merit based criteria where the power of You Tube and the mass media adjudicates that because a man has a mellifluous voice that he should be elevated out of his squalor.
In a period of American history when there are high levels of unemployment and national debt, there is little doubt as to Dr King's thoughts on a society that prioritises spending money on foreign conflicts before it assists the marginalised within its' own borders.
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
The vision which he had and the truths of which Martin Luther King spoke whilst rooted in a particular time and place in history contain a universal challenge to all mankind. I believe that he would be saddened if he saw the state of the world because while some things have improved, his work is far from complete. It would like making Emmeline Pankhurst watch Sex In The City 2 while trying to convince her that it is a show about female liberation and empowerment in the twenty first century. When he spoke of "the fierce urgency of Now" it was a long way removed from the immediacy that we demand in modern life but is a far worthier use of our time and resources. If nothing else Martin Luther King Jr Day serves as a reminder that the world still needs to hear and listen to his voice.
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