I struggle with how to mark Martin Luther King Day. Today is the only official US government holiday devoted to a single individual. And it is appropriate that such a holiday be devoted to the most admired American of the century. According to a Gallup poll, no American of the 20th Century was more admired than Dr. King. Only Mother Teresa scored higher. More admired than John F. Kennedy, more admired than Albert Einstein, more admired than Helen Keller, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a movement that changed American history.

But, sadly, we have not lived up to that legacy. “I have a dream,” Dr. King said in his famous 1963 March on Washington speech, “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.”

It is a noble dream. It is a dream that remains unfulfilled. Even with an African-American President the dream remains unfulfilled. Even with famously rich African-Americans like Oprah, Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods and O.J., the dream remains unfulfilled. We do not live in a color-blind society. We are no immune from racism.

Dr. King was successful in changing the attitudes of society. And his movement was successful in changing some of the laws that expressed institutional racism. And the doors have been opened to admit a few persons of color into positions of power and wealth. But we have such a long way to go.

A book club in which I participate is currently reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” It has been a challenge and an eye-opener for me. Alexander argues persuasively and powerfully that we have not ended racial caste in America. We have merely redesigned it. Legal racial separation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control. Thirty years ago, fewer than 350,000 people were held in prisons and jails in the United States. Today, the number of inmates in the United States exceeds 2,000,000. A higher percentage of our own citizens are imprisoned than was the case in the Soviet Union at the height of its power. A higher percentage of our own citizens are imprisoned than was the case in China at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

We would like to believe that everyone in prison is there because they have broken the law and are a threat to society. We would like to believe that our justice system is colorblind and that it makes no difference what your race is when you appear before a judge. The statistics simply do not support that view, however. The book systematically presents a very compelling argument that demonstrates how each stage in our criminal justice system has operated to the detriment of African-Americans.

I didn’t need to read the book in order to know that we have not eliminated racism from our society. I live in South Dakota where the population in our prisons is disproportionately Native American and our incarceration rate is nearly double that of neighboring states. I am painfully aware that our state legislature passionately debates laws funding education and falls far short of our neighbors in support for schools while the budgets for prisons sail through the legislature and increased funding for prisons is seen as a higher priority for state moneys than education in every session of the legislature. I listened carefully to our Governor as he outlined the recommendations of a program of judicial reform and told us how he had carefully limited the proposals to eliminate any possibility of innovation by requiring the committee to consider only laws and programs that had been adopted by other states. Far too many of those “reform” proposals come directly from Southern states with extremely high incarceration rates.

But you wouldn’t have to even know about our state government or visit our prisons to know that racism is alive and well in South Dakota. A quick tour of the neighborhoods and schools of our city makes it clear that we have a caste system in our town.

So I struggle with how to recognize this day. I am impressed with the President’s call to public service in recognition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a fitting tribute. Volunteerism can make a big difference and service is certainly a pathway that should be encouraged. Public commemorations are appropriate. Faith Temple Church in our town is hosting the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration at the Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn Ballroom at noon today. I have attended many of the celebrations in the past and have participated in our public celebrations. But there is little in such an event that inspires genuine change. This year’s theme is “Honoring the Dream.” But I know from prior experience that the program will not include a call to make serious structural changes in our way of life.

I don’t know if we honor the dream by arguing for the status quo.

It seems to me that perhaps this is a day for some introspection and internal wrestling for me. In what ways does my life foster the growth of racism? How have I bought into a system whereby I benefit from the sufferings of others? When have I failed to work for justice for all of the people of this great land?

One of my disciplines for 2013 is to read a poem by Rilke each day. So you can expect a lot of Rilke quotes in this year’s blogs. Today’s poem strikes me:

The Man Watching (II)

What we triumph over is so small,
and the victory makes us small too.
The eternal and uncommon
refuses to be bent by us.
Like the angel who appeared
to the wrestler in the Old Testament;
when his opponent’s sinews
grow hard as metal in the struggle,
they feel to his fingers like strings
on which to play a depthless melody.

Whoever is conquered by this angel
when the angel does not refuse to fight
walks away erect and ennobled,
strengthened by that fierce hand
that, like a sculptor’s, shaped him.
Winning does not tempt that man.
His growth is this: to be defeated
by ever greater forces.

Book of images

So I continue to wrestle with myself and my own attitudes. We have come a long way, but the journey ahead is no less daunting.

The dream calls us to a new future.

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