I find MLK day especially poignant this year

[Buckeyeblue]

If you have a minute please read MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" as it's an important meditation about why the fight for equality under the law is is non-negotiable.

http://www.historymuse.net/readings/MLKBirminghamJail1963.htm

[Easterncedar]

1. Thank you

I was overwhelmed at the UU service here in Maine yesterday with the MLk-centered message and my memories from a childhood in New York where I was part of the school desegregation fight. I was one of 40 white 5th and 6th graders who voluntarily were bussed to an all black elementary school. We were there when King was assassinated. I can’t believe we have fallen so far, so suddenly, from the ideals of progress my parents so believed in.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. MLK's essay struck me a little differently this year

I had always thought more about the context of it in the early 1960's and a young MLK making the case that people shouldn't have to "wait" for their oppressors to decide not to oppress them, that the time was now and the time to stop oppression would always be now.

But what really stood out more on this mornings reading was the demand for dignity, the impact of oppression on one's dignity. King almost seems to be saying I can't change your heart but I will make you treat me as an equal under the law.

I think about how Trump's main approach is to first rob people if their dignity. ICE isn't about immigration enforcement. It's about dehumanizing people. Stripping people of their dignity, of their personhood by pulling them from their houses in the middle of the night, ripping them from their cars, threats, excessive force, a killing here and there. Trumpism is about robbing people of their basic dignity. It's really evil in a very pure form.