For Love of One's People

 

There is so much that can be said on this day and I feel that no words of mine could possibly add much to the conversations swirling around Martin Luther King, Jr. As I now live far enough from major cities that I will not be able to join in the many marches ostensibly celebrating his message, I have time to reflect.

And one thing that has become clearer to me over the years, in my work and in activist circles, is that one of the core strengths of King’s work was that it was in great measure rooted and grounded in community and relationship. What I mean by this is that King was the powerful spokesperson that he was and touched to cord that he did because he was fighting and preaching and eventually dying for his people. Civil rights for Black Americans was not a cause or a crusade rooted in abstract ideals, but a living, breathing need coming out of the Black community. When white liberals and white clergy joined in solidarity, they were not core to the movement, but simply standing up with a living, breathing community fighting for their very survival.

My experience in activist circles in my generation has often been deeply disappointing. White liberal activism and liberal lobbies, whether fighting for “immigration reform” or “poverty alleviation” or “the environment,” are largely abstract movements spearheaded by people inspired by an idea, not by a community. They rarely have any relationship to the people they claim to stand with and, often, their pragmatic goals are at odds with the community itself (as in the case of immigration reform, with well-funded lobbies attempting to pass legislation that immigrant communities say is more hurtful than helpful).

We have come to view “activism” or “social justice” as a cause for which we can sign hundreds of random internet petitions. The danger with this is that such work is ungrounded. We fight for abstracts and causes we know little to nothing about. We get angry, not on behalf of those we love, but on behalf of a cause. We rail against a system or take out our angst on our designated enemies, without any sense of responsibility or community.

Martin Luther King has been well known for his words about love. What we have talked about less is that love can only be love if grounded in relationship and proximity (community). One can only truly love people one knows. Therefore, a struggle for justice grounded in love must be a struggle grounded in community.

King ultimately died, not only for an abstract cause of justice or freedom, but more specifically, on behalf of his people and community. That is what gave his life, and his death, such overwhelming power.