mlk day

This is the exact article I posted last year on MLK day (& the year before). you can go and read that post HERE (there are about 7 comments on that post) or just read it below. I wouldn't say anything different than I said a year ago. I just want to echo it today!

(his b-day was actually on the 15th, but today is the holiday.

.. hence the day for the post.)

I HATE racism... with a passion. There are few other things I hate as passionately as I hate racism - things like injustice (like the fact that some don't have access to clean water... or the GOSPEL), abortion, ignorance/complacency toward the poor & dying, people who would treat my wife or family bad...

I didn't really know what racism or prejudice was until I was probably 12. I grew up in a big neighborhood where I was 1 of 2 white kids. My BEST FRIEND in the whole world from the time I was born until around 13 or 14 was Colin Lomax. He was my next door neighbor for those 13 years. We did EVERYTHING together. Every day! Colin is an African American... but I didn't really know it. That's the great thing about kids... they're colorblind.

Colin and I have since drifted as we grew up, but still keep in touch. He was at my wedding and that was pretty awesome. My oldest friend in the whole world (since I was "zero") celebrating my wedding day with me.

So, in my mind, to think differently of people with a different color skin is the most ridiculous, ignorant, and craziest thing I've ever heard. Crazier than martians and flying pigs.

I celebrate anything that destroys racism and prejudice. God celebrates that too.

I never really knew that much about Martin Luther King, Jr. growing up. (My school didn't even take the day off.) But about 3 years ago I started paying attention and reading some stuff about him here and there. Last year on MLK day I posted about it too = HERE.

I would love to let MLK speak for himself... This is something he said when they were about to take action to bring about civil rights for African Americans & politicians were telling him to "wait... just wait and let us take care of it in due time..."

“We have waited three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. Perhaps it’s easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say ‘Wait,’ but when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters… when you have to concoct an answer for your five-year-old son’s question, ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white’ and ‘colored’; when your first name becomes ‘nigger’ and your middle name becomes ‘boy’… when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness,’ THEN you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” - MLK

WHOA. I hope that gives everyone a taste of the emotional background of a people with a different skin color than you. I don't think white folk can truly even imagine it.

*I was actually visiting my grandmother a few months ago in my dad's old hometown. We were driving down the main road through downtown (nothing luxurious, it's a TINY town) when I saw an old brick building (my dad later said it used to be the pool hall he used to hang out in & where he learned to be a pool shark). I was riding with my dad & yelled "STOP"... he pulled over wondering what was going on. I got out & took a picture of the building...

Yeah, no joke. Faded obviously because it hadn't been used in years, but nonetheless evidence of a HORRIBLE and INEXCUSABLE EVIL where people who simply have a darker pigment in their skin were degraded and forced to use a different entrance to buildings! Are you kidding me???

Think this kind of racism and EVIL is only a thing of the past? Think again. I just had a conversation with my mom the other day about a white girl I grew up with marrying a man who happened to be black. The girl's parents can't talk about it without crying - they're so disappointed. They were going to refuse to go to the wedding... OF THEIR OWN DAUGHTER (but apparently changed their mind). I'm sorry, but that's freaking ridiculous!

This is as insane as hating people with blonde hair! so ridiculous... such an arbitrary thing. It's just color!

I mean even the "christian" (and yes, I use the term very loosely) Bob Jones University - peeps who claimed to love Jesus were full on racists. They didn't even admit black students until 1976! what in the world!? But they would expel anyone who even thought interracial dating/marriage was ok. In 1983 they LOST in the Supreme Court case Bob Jones University vs. The United States!!! for real!!!? They lost their tax exempt status (& still don't have it back) but stood firm that their "racial discrimination was what God intended and founded in Scripture." That is SICK. I'm sure God is saying "LEAVE MY NAME OUT OF YOUR EVIL!" (To their meager credit the college lifted the interracial dating policy in 2000 because of intense media pressure and actually issued a public apology about 2 months ago. God can change anyone.)

From what I've read, I think MLK was a great man. I admire him greatly. I can't believe what he went through just so everyone could enjoy life without sanctioned hatred.

He had a vision and believed in it. Years later, I am behind his vision still:

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." - MLK

Me too, Martin. Love Wins.