MLK: Play Your Position

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Last night, I spoke at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The Black Graduate Students' Organization (BGSO) had their 22nd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards. I was introduced by Dr. Katheryn Russell-Brown, who's been on our air. She's an author and a UF law professor, who heads their Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations.

The BGSO crew are DYNAMIC scholars ... and funny! And smart, artistic, etc. etc. etc. (Why, when I had a 7 AM flight, did I stay at their dance party until almost 3 AM?)

Anyway, back to the speech. A little story I used to kick things off ...

Several years ago, I was in one of my raise-a-fist angry black woman moments. I don't even remember what set me off. So I sent an e-mail to some activist friends, all about saving black youth. Essentially, I tried to out-activist the activists. Imagine me trying to channel Huey Newton ... or more importantly, faking it out of a sense of insecurity about my own gifts. At the moment, I thought it was better to put on someone else's skin in order to fulfill my (well-meaning) goals.

Anyway, one of my friends, a community-based activist, kindly sent me an e-mail in response. The part I remember is that she said "play your position." The way she put it, with humor and some ego stroking, it wasn't an admonition. She was saying, kindly, that she was an activist and I was a journalist and both of us had our roles to play in creating a more just, liberated, and equal society.

Though she's passed away, her words stick with me still.

Most of us want to play someone else some of the time. We think that if only we were ... WHATEVER ... we would be more effective at making change. Sometimes when we think this, we are truly working out our place in the world, and we do need to shift direction. But sometimes -- most of the time -- it's because we see so much need in this world and we want to fill it all.

At the event, we had a conversation about what it means to find your mission, to play your position ... even when others disagree with you. That includes when the people disagreeing with you are the ones who have supported you, people who you love.

That got me to Reverend King. On MLK's actual birthday, the 15th, News & Notes producer Roy Hurst got us some tape of Dr. King speaking out against the Vietnam war in 1967. In that speech, with a heaviness and weariness, Dr. King acknowledges that many of the people who had marched and struggled with him were also people who did not want him to speak out against the war. Rev. King said (and we played this part of his speech):

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "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.

The people who questioned the wisdom of Dr. King's path included members of the SCLC, people he had been working for justice with for a decade. So, why did Dr. King break with them on this issue? Well, each of us has our own moral compass, our own path to walk ... our own position to play. And as I've learned over time, one of the greatest things we can do for social justice is to play our position well.

Dr. King was willing to play his position, not only when it brought him into opposition with people in power who he was willing to defy, but also when he made people who stood beside him angry. He was willing to follow his moral compass. Not all of us have that strength all of the time. He was certainly human ... he probably didn't live up to his own expectations all the time. But he played his position, one that ultimately cost him his life.

We don't have to lose our lives in order to change others'. All we have to do is find that sweet spot where we find our moral compass, give our gifts to the world, and accept but do not expect rewards when they come. Okay, that's not really an "all we have to do." That's quite a high bar. But I do believe, deeply -- from having a job where I get to speak to politicians, artists, community activists, pundits, and you name it -- that it's the diversity of our gifts that produce transformation.

So: happy Martin Luther King Day. And play your position ... and play it well.

Farai Chideya

Tags: Martin Luther King

comments | | e-mail