Chai's Analysis

Remembering MLK

I love reading biographies of great people and animals. I love learning about how other people lead their lives. One thing I have learned about great people is that they all had their faults, including MLK. However, he was aware of his weakness and often told people not to hold him out as an immortal. But we did and do.

MLK's words continue to inspire. He and his speech writers had a way with words. Back then, words actually inspired millions of people to do something, to make a change.

In college, I partook in the annual MLK speech contest. Although I love public speaking, when I signed up, I hadn't been in a speech contest since high school (oh the glory days of speech and debate!). I remember writing the speech at 2AM in the morning, three days before the contest. I was inspired by feminism and the women around me. We were supposed to incorporate MLK's statement, "Injustice anwhere, is a threat to justice everywhere." (cliche alert) As luck would have it, this morning I was clearing out another box of my crap and found the speech I gave. It's a militant speech about the injustices women have faced. I won't bore you with the entire speech, so here is a snippet of it:

...Women's bodies are still being lynched by people looking for power in their lives. Rather than typing people up by rope, we have limited them through money, through education, through opportunities. We have a history of oppression. Many groups have asked and continue to ask for reparations for the oppression their ancestors, and trickled down, what they are currently going through. What would it be like if women started to ask for monetary reparations for centuries of their pain and suffering?...

If injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, than for everyone who treasures comfort and stability of their suburban lifestyle, beware because injustice ravages on. For all these people who sing the anthem at their favorite ballpark or knell graciously on their church pew, beware because injustice rages on. For all those individuals who claim to embrace diversity, yet spend their lives surrounded by those like them, beware because injustice continues, unwaveringly, onward. Our nation, our country's foundation, our very sense of being and identity is created upon the ideal of equality, yet we still don't have it.....

America has spent these past 225 years trying to define itself by embracing the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence to no avail. The question of gender inequality still looms in our society like a cancerous lump in a woman's breast, a lump that requires little recognition but much comprehension. On Novemeber 2, 1920, over eight million American women voted for the first time. Thomas Jefferson had proclaimed equality as the bedrock of America, but it took over 144 years for this to occur on paper...So long as America continues to believe that equality for all has been reached, our women get paid less, our laws repeal simple freedoms for a woman, our rapists continue to walk the streets freely, our sisters get kicked around by abusers with little or no protection. So long as we deny America a commitment to equality, and deny America the American creed, women who fight so hard for noble causes will continue to die unnoticed. ...

posted by Chai at 9:11 AM