Tag: Martin Luther King Jr.

Attention must be paid: this isn’t about race relations; it’s about racial justice

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Attention must be paid.
Attention must be paid.

By Alan Bean

Glancing at the paper this morning over breakfast, I noticed the headline, “Race relations arguably worse in ‘Age of Obama'”.

That banal conclusion is based on a recent poll suggesting that 43% of Americans believe that having an African-American president has not helped race relations, while only 34% believe it has helped.

This assumes that race relations–white folks and people of color getting along–is what we’re shooting for.  It isn’t. (more…)

Maggie and Martin

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By Alan Bean

In one of those odd quirks of history, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher shuffled off this mortal coil just as we were remembering the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and his great “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” delivered a half-century ago in April of 1963.

I wonder what King and Thatcher would have had to say to one another had history arranged such a meeting.  I suspect they would have liked and, perhaps grudgingly  respected one another, but have two people ever looked at the world through such different lenses?

Bleeding hearts like me remember Thatcher for her “families and society” comment.  Let’s be fair and consider her words in full context: (more…)