In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[lilithu]

Frontline is one of my favorite shows on tv. One episode that aired a while back documented what happened when one third-grade teacher, after Dr. King was assasinated, tried to show her students what it felt like to be a person of color.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

The thing that disturbed me most is how easily these kids went along with these capricious views and even escalated it on their own (and I don't think that there was anything particularly wrong with these kids).

The other thing that struck me is that the lesson didn't really show them what it feels like, because they could take off the collar when the "experiment" was over.

God bless you Martin and Happy Birthday.

 

[Comprehend]

Frontline is one of my favorite shows on tv. One episode that aired a while back documented what happened when one third-grade teacher, after Dr. King was assasinated, tried to show her students what it felt like to be a person of color.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

The thing that disturbed me most is how easily these kids went along with these capricious views and even escalated it on their own (and I don't think that there was anything particularly wrong with these kids).

The other thing that struck me is that the lesson didn't really show them what it feels like, because they could take off the collar when the "experiment" was over.

God bless you Martin and Happy Birthday.

yeah. see the Stanford Prison experiment. Same thing happens. They really take to their roles more than anyone would expect a person would. The prison experiment was just a bunch of college volunteers but it had to be stopped because it got out of hand. Amazing.

I am living less than an hour from Birmingham right now and it is sad to see how little progress has been made here.

 

[Lindsey-Loo]

I am living less than an hour from Birmingham right now and it is sad to see how little progress has been made here.

Not just Birmingham, we still see racism throughout the South. Probably other places, too, but I've never been outside the South, so I wouldn't know.

Anyway, Dr. Martin Luther King had good morals, and excellant ideals. His murder was tragic.

 

[lilithu]

I am living less than an hour from Birmingham right now and it is sad to see how little progress has been made here.

Not just Birmingham, we still see racism throughout the South. Probably other places, too, but I've never been outside the South, so I wouldn't know.

Non-southerners used to say that the South was racist, implying that the rest of us were not. That's certainly something that I learned growing up in California. It was just meant that we were biggoted against Southerners without admitting to our own racism. Trust me, it's everywhere, even in the big, sophisticated, supposedly liberal cities. We've just learned not to say it out loud.

 

[Lindsey-Loo]

Non-southerners used to say that the South was racist, implying that the rest of us were not. That's certainly something that I learned growing up in California. It was just meant that we were biggoted against Southerners without admitting to our own racism. Trust me, it's everywhere, even in the big, sophisticated, supposedly liberal cities. We've just learned not to say it out loud.

Does that make you Californians region-ist? Or states-ist? lol, that's kinda what I figured. Well, racism is alive and well here in Tennessee. And not just whites to blacks either, blacks to whites, whites and blacks to mexicans, mexicans to blacks, native americans to whites, whites to native americans. Asian people aren't racist to anyone, as far as I've seen. I guess they just rock like that.

 

[lilithu]

Does that make you Californians region-ist? Or states-ist? lol, that's kinda what I figured.

Jeez, I just figured that everyone thinks their state is the best. I certainly wouldn't begrudge a Tennesseean telling me that nothing is more beautiful than the Great Smoky Mountains. But seriously, I'm pretty sure that it isn't just California that knocks the South. Prejudices come in all forms.

Asian people aren't racist to anyone, as far as I've seen. I guess they just rock like that.

Umm....no.... trust me, we are. Asians just traditionally aren't confronational.

 

[doppelganger]

King's vision of love and non-violence was about something even larger than ending racism though.

"Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

 

[lilithu]

King's vision of love and non-violence was about something even larger than ending racism though.

True dat. You might also be interested in this post:
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45385

 

[PHOTOTAKER]

i wish she was my 3rd gread teacher...

 

[PHOTOTAKER]

Frontline is one of my favorite shows on tv. One episode that aired a while back documented what happened when one third-grade teacher, after Dr. King was assasinated, tried to show her students what it felt like to be a person of color.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

The thing that disturbed me most is how easily these kids went along with these capricious views and even escalated it on their own (and I don't think that there was anything particularly wrong with these kids).

The other thing that struck me is that the lesson didn't really show them what it feels like, because they could take off the collar when the "experiment" was over.

God bless you Martin and Happy Birthday.

i thank that it dosn't matter how long you are in a position to understand being isoloated from who you are as long as someone can teach it to someone else that they will never forget then there is a great chance that there would be no isolation in the places were we live... we see that today with religion doing the exact samething, differnces is eather a curse or a blessing which do you wont it to be? thats what Martin Luther learn in life, thats what he was trying to teach, and thats what he dreamed that all differnces will be a blessing to life of those around to inreach lives...