Mikaela says:
I guess I'm on a quest for perspective these days, starting with a plea to keep a global perspective in assessing the Katrina tragedy, to a family challenge to keep my mom from losing it over having her identity stolen (long story, that), to most recently, trying to remember that I'm not the first person in the history of the world to feel challenged over writing a thesis. Ahem.
Last night, during a much-deserved thesis break, Marjorie and I turned on the ole boob-tube and caught the tail-end of American Experience's documentary on RFK. I'll go ahead and admit my ignorance. The extent of my historical knowledge of this man extended to a fuzzy awareness that the Kennedys had multiple family members killed and that now the family legacy is one of political aristocracy. I admit that their very mystique (what's with the whole Camelot thing, anyway?) has turned me off from wanting to know any more in the past (People's History and all that). And I'm a bit fuzzy on presidential history in general. As much as I care about our current president, I just haven't given the others much thought.
But as the documentary explains the ins and outs for RFKs bid for the presidency, I was caught unaware because of his riveting energy. This man was AMAZING. I got all excited and energized. I would have voted for him in a heartbeat! A politician? With good ideas? With passion? With a sense of responsibility to and for and with the people??? At one point, he's running against McCarthy (Eugene, not the famous Joseph McCarthy of Red fear fame, I found out) for the democratic nomination. I can't stand the tension! I'm dying to know how this story ends! I ask Marjorie, "Who eventually wins this election?" Nixon.
I look back at the t.v. Nixon! This guy or NIXON? "Why didn't he win?" I ask, blankfaced (but with a twinge of, oh boy, I think I should know this one, seeing how great he is and was never President). "He got assassinated."
Oh. Right.
Then the documentary described RFK being told en route to a black community rally that Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated. His advisors told him not to go on to the rally: might be violence, might be danger. But he goes. His speechwriter jots some notes on a napkin, but RFK already knows what he will say.
He stands before a sea of people -- "his people" he said -- many of whom have not yet heard the terrible news. When he says it out loud, there's an audible wail that ripples through the audience. And he begins to speak. In his own words. Quoting the obscure Greek philosopher and poet Aeschylus:
Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...
I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.
For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote:
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much.
Indianapolis - April 4, 1968
And I think to myself, how easily could this speech apply to Katrina? How well did our President measure up against this impromptu speech, even given the fact that as a Kennedy RFK was steeped in education, policy, debate, and opportunity? Couldn't the same thing be said for George W. Bush of Bush legacy? So what's the difference?
RFK spoke from the brain and the heart straight to a community that yes, supported him, but was still different from him and his privileged upbringing. And yet, he saw that the structural injustice in America had to be changed because it was racism and not laziness that held back an entire community of people. And he dedicated his life -- and his death -- to improving the situation, the opportunity, the access to power for folks that weren't the same color as he was.
How many politicians these days, democratic or republican, can really say that and have us believe them? Because that was the most powerful thing that hit me while watching this documentary: you could feel his sincerity, his passion, the weight of his terrible dedication, the same way you can see the toll it took on Lincoln to take on the fight against injustice that tore our country apart. That still tears us silently apart.
Like many Americans, I look around and see how bad things are and think to myself, "This is the worst it's ever been." But the 1960s may still have us beat. How many more thousands of lives were lost in Vietnam every day? We got attacked on our soil, but the 1960s had its spiritual, cultural, and political leaders mowed down one by one. Strange that radicals are still labeled the dangerous ones. The FBI's watching anti-war groups, but presidents and prominent public leaders have been shot by white men acting alone. Were they on the watch list? Are they now?
Recent talk about assassinating Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, may signal that they're "warming up all the old horrors" as one of my favorite poets Robinson Jeffers writes. Let us hope for the same spirit of resiliency and resolve that a whole movement of people showed in stopping the war and continuing to fight for civil rights for everyone. Today we fight not only for human rights but for economic and environmental justice for all communities. We still have so far to march.
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