A Hope and Prayer for MLK Day

I still remember fighting back what would have been embarrassing tears. I believe it was second grade when I heard for the first time the story of Martin Luther King Jr. I was moved at what this man accomplished and pained by the absolute unfair treatment of African American people. I couldn’t cry though, because in my neck of the woods I’d have received a label that I wasn’t mature or bold enough to want attached to my name. So I wept inwardly and hypocritically joined the ranks of some of my other classmates in saying that MLK Day was stupid.

But that didn’t keep me from being intrigued by MLK and Jackie Robinson and other heroes of the civil rights movement. As I look back even now I wonder if seeds of gospel faith were planted when reading MLK’s Letters from a Birmingham Jail. I know that as a young boy I embraced Dr. King’s dream:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

But, I don’t think Dr. King’s dream is being realized in our nation. And the fear that I have in making the point that I want to make might be evidence A. What I see on social media and online articles are not people judging one another on the content of their character nor on the truth of the words that they speak but the color of their skin.

I don’t know how many times I have seen a white person get absolutely torched because he has asked an honest question about race. And rather than him being judged by the content of his character or the truth of his words he is dismissed as a white man who just doesn’t understand and will never understand. I think that’s why I found Taelor Gray’s Hostages to Hegemony so unsettling. To me it communicated that if you are living in a white rural area that you just will never understand. That, to me, is judging someone based not on character but on the color of their skin. And there are thousands of similar articles—many far less gracious in their writing.

What I am attempting to say here is that we aren’t even able to have much of a conversation about these things because Dr. King’s dream has not been realized. His statement cuts both ways. We haven’t realized his dream until people of every color walk into a conversation judging one another by the content of our character instead of the color of their skin (whether that skin be white, black, olive, or some other shade of beautiful).

But I also fear making the statement I am here because I’ve also witnessed many white folks close their ears to actual racism and cut of dialogue while screaming “reverse racism” from the top of their lungs. They too have not realized Dr. King’s dream. They still see through a lens of color and not character.

So on this MLK Day I’m praying that we are given the eyes of the Lord who doesn’t see in colors but in terms of character. I’m praying that we can have actual conversations which leads to fruitful actions because we all buy into Dr. King’s dream. Which really isn’t his dream but it is the passion of the God of the universe to unite diverse people under the banner of His Son. I’m longing for the day when Christ makes all things right and racial reconciliation is no longer a conversation but a reality.

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