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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

MLK Day

Today is a national holiday in the United States - Martin Luther King Day - so it's a quiet day for rest and reflection. With the wind whistling past my 53rd-floor window I have been reading the chapter about King from Philip Yancey's book 'Soul Survivor' [UK|US|CA], a collection of 13 biographies of the "unlikely mentors" that helped his "faith survive the Church" [thanks, Paul].

Philip Yancey is a child of the South and participated in Alabama's apartheid, but has since moved on to a place of reflection and grace. His account describes the breathtakingly evil bigotry and lawlessness (even sheriffs delivering fatal beatings to activists without any apparent recourse) and the stunning blind-spot hypocrisy of the Church. It was this that seemed to discourage King the most:

"The most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid. I felt that white ministers would take our cause to the white power structures. I ended up, of course, chastened and disillusioned. As our movement unfolded, and direct appeals were made to white ministers, most folded their hands - and some even took stands against us."

Yancey then relates his experience of writing about King and receiving letters criticising him for holding up "a plagiarizer and womanizer" as an example. He says:

"I wrote detailed replies ... and then the irony struck me. How in the world could they question King's right to speak for God and not mine, given my spotted past?"

This same selective blindness affects us just as seriously today. How can the US complain about its beef being embargoed by countries in the Pacific basin and seek early compromise by Mexico when it is still blocking Japanese imports from a case in 2001 and doing so little at home? How can it insist on fighter escorts for aircraft and humanity-denying security measures in foreign airports when a traveller with bullets can still check in at Washington airport and fly to London? And that's just stories from last week, the list is massive.

Today, we need to avoid Martin Luther King's error. Just because the injustice of Guantanamo Bay is plain as day, just because the security measures endemic in the US are so often clearly an expression of racial bigotry, it doesn't mean everyone sees it. We need to take the opportunities we have to be active, not passive, in exposing the injustices done to ourselves and to others. For me, that's the message of the holiday I am sharing with my US friends because the spirit of King's movement is still needed today.

posted at 4:32 PM (UK) | |