Sermons by Reverend Don Beaudreault
The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Don Beaudreault
Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota, FL
January 15, 2006
OPENING READING: “Time itself is neutral…”
Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men and women willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
MEDITATIVE READING: “It’s in our hands.”
I would like to tell you (the) story of an old man. The old man was very wise, and he could answer what was almost impossible for people to answer, so many people went to him. One day two young people went and said, “We’re going to trick this old guy today. We’re going to catch a bird and we’re going to carry it to the old man. And we’re going to ask him, ‘This that we hold in our hands today, is it alive or is it dead?’ If he says ‘Dead,’ we’re going to turn it loose and let if fly. But if he says, ‘Alive,’ we’re going to crush it.” So they walked up to the old and man and they said, “This that we hold in our hands today, is it alive or is it dead?” He looked at the young people and he smiled. And he said, “It’s in your hands.”
Fannie Lou Hamer
SERMON: “The Legacy of Marin Luther King, Jr.”
In our reading this morning, Fannie Lou Hamer tells us of the old man’s reply to the children’s bird-in-hand question: “Is it alive or is it dead?” by having him say: “It’s in your hands.”
It seems to me that he is giving us advice when it comes to the issue of racial justice. We can kill it by our apathy or merely reactive approach, or we can keep it alive by our pro-active stance and then we do what Dr. King and others have suggested that we do: “Walk our talk.”
These three little words could really change the course of history if we all applied them to how we live. In doing so, we need not think in terms of great tasks accomplished, for few human beings will ever be so influential. Still, it is with the little things that you and I can hope to make a difference. It is how we relate to each other, face to face.
Watching our children this morning as they were listening to the story about Dr. King and the children who responded to him, reminds me of when I was a child in Mrs. Wilburn’s First Grade Sunday School class. She was teaching us about the differences between people. Even now in my mind’s eye, I see her beatific face, and the book she is holding. The drawing in it shows children from different countries. They are wearing clothing indicative of their cultures. Their faces are a variety of colors. “Although we are different, we are all one,” my teacher says. “God loves us all.” Up until this point in my life, although I knew there were a few kids with black faces, it hadn’t sunk in that there were kids with all kinds of faces. “Let’s sing now, children,” Mrs. Wilburn says. She goes to the piano and leads us in the hymn: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
Today, we know that some children will never hear this song, or ever be told that anyone loves them. And if they are black - to rephrase Dr. King’s words: they will be judged by the color of their skins, not by the content of their character.
For them, Maya Angelou’s words heralding the “awesome wonder of diversity” ring hollow. “Into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend, than we are unalike,” this poet says. Still, many African Americans will forever be the disenfranchised, the marginal.
Statistics say this:
POVERTY While constituting roughly 13% of the total population, Black America represents nearly 30% of America's poor. That compares with 11% of whites, and 27% Latinos. Black family income is just 60% of white income, and 43% of all Black children live beneath the poverty line-a figure almost identical to that which existed on the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. White Americans possess 12 times the average net worth of Blacks.70% of elderly Blacks have no financial assets.
CRIME Blacks are incarcerated at a rate that is more than 6 times that of whites. The number of college-aged Black males in prisons and jails in the U.S. is greater than the number of Black males enrolled in higher education. The Black male homicide rate is 7 times the white male rate. Black women are 18 times more likely to be raped than white women. Blacks make up 40% of the death row population. The rate of imprisonment for Black women is more than 8 times that of white women.
AIDS HIV/AIDS is the number 1 cause of death for Blacks aged 25 to 44. In recent years, the estimated incidence of HIV/AIDS has declined for every race except Blacks. 44% of all AIDS cases among men in the U.S. are African Americans. 67% of all AIDS cases among women in the U.S. are African Americans.
HEALTH Whites live 6 years longer than Blacks. Black infant mortality is more than twice as high as that for whites. Twenty-five percent of Blacks in the U.S. have no health insurance. One out of every 21 Black men can expect to be murdered, a death rate double that of U. S. soldiers in World War II.
HOUSING 80% of America's homeless are Black. 60% of the total Black population in the U.S. lives in communities with one or more uncontrolled toxic waste sites. Blacks were 210% more likely than whites of comparable credit to be rejected for mortgage.
FAMILIES 62% of Black families are now headed by single women. 67% of Black children are born out of wedlock. The pregnancy rate of young women 15-19 years old is twice that of whites. Blacks account for 41% of all abortions. Blacks report higher rates of domestic violence than whites.
EMPLOYMENT Black adult unemployment has remained twice as high as white unemployment for more than 30 years. Blacks hold only 10.1% of U.S. jobs. They are only 3.2% of lawyers, 3% of doctors, and less than 1% of architects. White males with a high-school diploma are just as likely to have a job, and tend to earn just as much as Black males with college degrees.
EDUCATION Only 12% of Black high-school seniors are "proficient" readers. 40-44% of Blacks are functionally illiterate. The high-school dropout rate in some inner-city communities approaches 50%. College-educated Blacks are 4 times more likely than whites to experience unemployment. (The American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms )(Chicago, Lushena, 2002):
So much to do!
And when we stop to think deeply on the matter of differences between human beings, each of us realizes that in some way or other, we all are different from each other. And yet this is not the same thing as being born black in this county.
Not to accept our individual and collective forms of prejudice is to deny Dr. King’s legacy that tells us to admit our cultural conditioning, so that we can then work to overcome it.
Yes, I feel the guilt. A poem I wrote about it, says this:
Guilty I am and you know yours, too –
For all “we” have done and think to do:
The shrouded terrors of the night,
The immolation symbols of suffering and strife;
Strangling that which we fear and despise.
Oh god of realities, strike through the veil
And bring us to judgment, lest we act again beyond the pale;
So quick we are to abhor and slaughter, then deny the sin!
Our evil – still - now cloaked in verbal correctness
Is nevertheless, insidious, a testament to tenacity:
To our elemental need to brutalize the oppressed.
It is the horror of white pride seeking protection,
Denying the other’s humanity, torching the spirit.
But you know, our hearts could bleed a long time if we choose to merely maintain a mea culpa attitude, blaming ourselves for the ills of racial prejudice. Yes, it is crucial to admit our failings, but then we must get on with the tasks of doing something about them – each in her or his way, either in a grand and acknowledged way, or in a small and subtle way. But doing something we must!
It begins, really, in one-on-one relationships.
Consider the story that Ram Dass tells in his book How Can I Help? In the following incident, Ram Dass is a hospital volunteer working with terminally ill children and burn victims. He tells us:
There was this one little black kid…He was horribly burned. He looked like burnt toast. Pieces of his face weren’t there. Pieces of his ears were missing. Where was his mouth? You could hardly tell who he was. There was no way of pinning a person to the face, what little there was of it…I was overwhelmed…All of a sudden, this other little kid comes whizzing by – I think he was skating along with his I-V pole – and he stops, and kinda pushes around me, and looks…at this other kid, and comes out with, “Heh, You – Ugly!” and the burnt kid made this gurgling laugh kind of noise and his face moved around, and all of a sudden I just went for his eyes, and we locked up right there. And everything else just dissolved. It was like going through a tunnel right to his heart. And all the burnt flesh disappeared, and I saw him from another place.
Usually, such understanding between people does not happen this quickly. But when it does – what a wonderful gift of the human spirit!
What has to happen before this deep connection is made? Pretense has to be eliminated. That is why in catastrophic situations people come together in ways reaching beyond color, creed, class, or any other category into which we human beings have a penchant for putting ourselves. We get close to one another because all our masks are removed through the sharing of a common tragedy.
Why do we have these pretenses about ourselves? It is our fear of being discovered; of being shown to be weak or needy. It is the fear of someone getting close to us because we might have to give ourselves away.
Certainly there is the fear of the unknown when it comes to racial and cultural differences. Some experts think of it as a primal fear, conditioned by environment. It is the “opposites do not attract” theory. It is the argument for prejudice based on ignorance. But if we get to know someone then at least we can choose to feel or not to feel comfortable with him or her.
Yet society does not allow itself such integration. The taboos are still there, even though they might be tempered a bit by law and practice.
We are not yet a color-blind society. Racial inequality is still strong. Institutional and personal racism is still a curse in America. People are judged simply because they look a certain way. Ask anyone who is in a minority because of his or her color.
So, do we walk our talk when it comes to racial justice? Again, we do if how we relate to each person who comes across our path, is an attempt to move beyond the boundaries of color, and see our neighbor for the individual she or he is – not as a stereotype, not as an “issue” – but as a human being who, like us, needs love and wants to give love in return.
But it is also about working with the legal, governmental and political systems, and other institutions to change things concerning child welfare, poverty, education, health care, crime, the prison system, housing and employment.
Let me close with these words from Maya Angelou:
It is time for the preachers, the rabbis, the priests and pundits, and the professors to believe in the awesome wonder of diversity so that they can teach those who follow them. It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter their color; equal in importance no matter their texture.
Our young must be taught that racial peculiarities do exist, but that beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friend than we are unalike.”
So may all of us here assembled this morning believe these words; furthermore, may we do all within our power to actualize them with our deeds. If we do these things, Dr. King’s dream will come true.
CLOSING WORDS: “Justice makes tireless demands…”
Justice makes tireless demands, and we grow weary. As we touch one another in common cause, and with the Great Spirit in our midst, let us find the way and the courage to realize the dream, which still lives within us. Amen.
Toni Vincent