MLK 50 Panel Discussion
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018 has come and gone. What MLK weekend is complete without a three day weekend and a trip down to the National Civil Rights Museum. Normally when that three day weekend is over the majority of people don’t think about Dr. King or his message again until February, April 4th, and then on MLK Day the following year.
The Memphis Grizzlies host a discussion filled weekend every year during the weekend leading up to MLK Day. There are only a select few people that are on hand to hear and participate in these discussions. It’s obvious that these discussions aren’t long enough or heard by enough people. If they were, the world we live in would be much different.
Martin Luther King Jr is most known for his the dream for humanity that is described in his I Have A Dream Speech. Do some research and you will learn that Dr. King realized that his precious dream was indeed a nightmare. When he realized that the reality of the situation his message changed.
Once Dr. King began the Poor Peoples Campaign demanding economic equality he became a threat and he had to go. One of the many injustices that he pointed out during his speeches was the fact that America refused to give “negroes’ any land. While America was refusing to give blacks any land in the south, the country was giving millions of anchors of land to whites in the west and the midwest. In addition to giving the land, America was also building land grant colleges to teach them how to farm. America also provided county agents to further their knowledge of farming, low interest loans allowing farmer to mechanize the farms, and federal subsidies. With this type of government assistance, of course those with the land and the know how to utilize the land would have a clear advantage over those without the same resources. Ironically enough the same people with these advantages were telling black people to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Those that currently benefit from those advantages that were received by their ancestors will be the same people to tell you to forget about racism and the past and everyone is equal today. But….
HOW SWAY?!?! Let’s use basketball for example. When the Grizzlies and the Lakers took the court on Monday, let’s just say that the Lakers started were already ahead 50-0 before the game even started. When the game ends and the Lakers win by 25 and a member of the Grizzlies says “we would have had a better chance at winning if the score was even to start the game.” And a member of the Lakers says ” quit complaining and just play harder if to want to win.” That hardly seems sensible right?
Well, that’s how crazy it sounds when someone says “get over slavery, that was the past. No one is in slavery today.” True but false. ( see the 13th Amendment) It’s kind of hard to get over playing on an uneven playing field to the tune of 400 years. In the words of Angela Rye, “We Built This Joint For Free!!” Where can you build a country and still be treated like second class citizens? ‘Murica that’s where.
The MLK50 panel discussion was about the intersection of sports, race , & social justice. The discussion also posed the question, “Where do we go from here to make Dr. Kings dream a reality. Over the next few weeks I will dissect the panel discussion in multiple installments. Make sure you have signed up to recieve our emails in order to be informed when the latest installment is uploaded.
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