Meditation on MLK Jr.

I spent much of the day taking it all in, listening, reading, and watching what people had to say about the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Here is some food for thought offered by one Mr. Sam Rocha at http://debaterelatepontificate.blogspot.com/

Today I'd like to write something that in my mind is more productive than offering odes to MLK Jr. - give a candid and honest insight into my own autoethnography.Well the day off from school is nice, but while I reflect on the significance of the day's memorial, I realize that in many ways Matin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated as a historical landmark solution to the problem of racism. To many this day signifies a comemoration of the way "things were," and while the U.S. may not be perfect - it has mostly reformed itself and is the "land of the free."The civil rights movement created social change that was significant, but the allusion that the "Dream" of 1967 is a dream fullfilled is a drunken delusion. Drunk with"patriotism" in which critique of social/political conditions is considered "unfaithful" citizenship. Drunk with the historical delusion that less than 50 years is a credible amount of time to realistically consider the cultural revolution started in the 60's finished.What Sam had to say to me was very interesting and thought provoking.

And in other news here is this week's person of the week:Some of the students displaced by Hurricane Katrina,when the hurricane whipped through the Gulf Coast region last late summer used last week to get back to the business of learning, I decided to recognize someone who epitomizes what will hopefully be possible for many of the students who are returning to school in New Orleans and beyond. This week's person of the week is Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the first African American to head a ivy league institution.

Here's a blurb about Dr. Simmons...
She is an African- American educator and the first Black president of Brown University. From Grapeland,Texas, her education includes a BA in romance languages, Dillard University, and an MA,Ph.D. in romance languages from Harvard. She was one of 12 siblings in a sharecropper' family. Vernell Lillie, her high school drama teacher, inspired her. Simmons won a scholarship to Dillard University in New Orleans. A junior-year stint at Wellesley College helped her discover what she really wanted to do was be a professor."I saw what women's colleges can do for women, especially in developing self-esteem and in preparing them for careers in nontraditional fields." She got her first academic job as an assistant professor at the University of New Orleans and went onto hold a range of administrative posts, including provost of Spelman and associate dean of the graduate school atthe University of Southern California. Simmons then spent a dozen years at Princeton in various roles. As director of Princeton's African-American Studies Program, she brought an elite circle ofAfrican-American intellectuals to the New Jersey campus, including Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and philosopher Dr. Cornel West.

Reference:Jet Magazine
Johnson Publishing
820 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago IL 60605