I have to say that MLK Jr is one of the more fascinating people I have read a little about. He is one of those people that I began to respect more and more the more I found out about him. If you ever get the chance, read his stuff and about him.
As I was leaving Chicago for St. Louis just before Christmas, I had a really good conversation with my dad on the phone about racism and poverty. He has been a police officer in the inner city of St.Louis for over thirty years now. Part of his work area is very impoverished and ghetto. The area where I now work is similar in many ways.
My dad freely admits that he has some racism in him, as I think most of us do to some extent or another. I'm sure that a cop doesn't always get the best of people, but he feels a lot of his racism stems from having to deal with the dregs of the inner city day in and day out. I have begun to understand where he is coming from.
I typically would consider myself a very non-racist person. At least compared to most people. But still, I know I am.
A few months ago while I was working a guy called up to me from the street to where I was working on the second story of a house and asked if I wanted to buy some tool or another from him. I immediately replied, "We don't want to buy any stolen tools." From this point on we exchanged some words. Mostly he called me names referring to my color, while I told him to get a job and such. He was so indignant. "I got a job. I live here, don't tell me to get out of here you fucking white...." After threatening me with some violence he stalked off.
I began to regret very much what I had said. I think I caught a glimpse of some of the racism that is buried deep down in me. Maybe he really was just trying to sell some tool of his that he didn't need anymore. At first I thought he might be the same person that had come by before trying to sell obviously stolen stuff, but I wasn't sure. I have had tools stolen from me on a couple of occasions, and it really pisses me off. Mostly though I felt sad for knowing that there is hatred in my heart for people that I don't even really know.
Another guy I work with confirmed that the guy trying to sell stuff had stolen from Breaking Ground before. On one occasion they had to buy back their car keys from him after he had stolen them. I felt justified, but I still had that pang of guilt. This was just one incident, but it has begun to affect the way I think, both for good and bad.
One of the things my dad and I both absolutely hate about working in the inner city is how people just throw trash in the street, especially when standing right next to a trash can. It happens all the time. A few week ago a van was pulling down the alley where I was standing. He literally stopped several feet from me, where the passenger in the van opened his door and proceeded to throw out a McDonald's bag full of trash. He closed the door and drove off like it was the most normal thing in the world. Now there is nothing unusual about this at all where I work, I see it all the time, except that there were SIX empty trashcans directly next to the van on the driver side.
It's stuff like that that makes me just shake my head. I have long had the ambition to work for social justice. To fight on the side of the underdog. It has been a natural disposition of mine for as long as I can remember, only becoming more intense and clear once I became a christian. But now that I'm actually involved more directly in that kind of work, I see more my limitations when it comes to being able to deliver any real change myself. One thing my dad and I both agreed on was that if there was going to be lasting change in the inner cities of America, for the poor blacks in America, it will have to be led from within. White folks like myself can do what we can do, but in the end it has to be a black initiative. It will need people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as it's leaders. The best thing that I can really do is work on the racism in me.
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