Having Conversations: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement of Today

How do we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Posting an inspirational quote from Dr. King as an obligatory Facebook status? Buying into racist stereotypes (it happened: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/HaireoftheDog/archives/2014/01/20/celebrating-mlk-day-with-fried-chicken-and-40s-of-oe)? Taking a day off from school and work? Participating in a “day on, not a day off” by doing service (it also happened: http://news.cofc.edu/2014/01/20/4-martin-luther-king-jr-day-2014-events-and-activities-hosted-by-the-college-of-charleston/)?

This is a couple weeks late, but I want to propose that we commemorate Dr. King and a civil rights movement necessitating our attention still today by doing what the activists of the 1960s did: have conversations. Perhaps that is overly simplistic, but as I have been thinking about the collection of rights people advocate for today (equality among races, sexual orientations, religions, abilities, nationalities and citizenship statuses), I have noticed a common thread. We struggle to have conversations.

Remember the great government shutdown of 2013? Yes, of course you do. It’s what happened when the government struggled to have real conversations. It happens on much smaller scales: within churches, on college campuses, in neighborhoods, across generations. When I try to remember the real conversations I’ve had in the past month, they’re few and far between. I mean, I talk to people all the time—those I agree with and those I don’t. But the times I have talked about real issues with people and actively listened to their side, civilly presented my thoughts, and each of us allowed the others’ opinions to matter significantly…those times are few.

As part of “Share the Dream” week on the College of Charleston campus, Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented American and successful American journalist, spoke about what it means to be American—both documented and undocumented. He connected immigrant rights with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He gave the statistics and stories to propose that immigrant rights are important, that “no human being is ‘illegal.’” I walked away from his talk with a more meta message, though. His talk was much more about having conversations, and I think one of the clips he showed from his documentary, "Documented," encapsulated that. In the clip, he was interviewing an Alabama college student about recent legislation requiring students to present papers as proof of their citizenship when a man in the background of the shot decided to share his opinion, which greatly differed from both Vargas’s and the student’s. This man implied that all immigrants—legal or not—should leave the country because they are stealing jobs from Americans. Vargas didn’t shut him down (or let himself shut down), but allowed the man to express his opinion, asking him questions because he genuinely wanted to learn a different perspective from this man. And perhaps because Vargas listened to him, the man was then interested in Vargas’s story. They fist-pumped at the end of the clip, each apparently having learned something from the other. Heart-warming, right?

I don’t have to imagine how this conversation could have taken a different turn: I’ve seen it happen before. People get offended and defensive, calling one another “close-minded.” Liberal views and conservative views can both be close-minded, when everyone sees their own views as right and others’ views as wrong. There is no room for conversation.

I have been guilty of being on both sides of inability to have conversation. Now, I want the conversations, because out of conversations, movements are born.

in!Genius

I believe in the power of stories to create change.

But when I was asked to share my story, I was initially skeptical  that people would want to hear what I had to say. 

A wise person in my life likes to tell me that I will not be able to empower others if I don't first empower myself, so I began digging around in my life for a story worth telling, a story that might create change. 

On September 25th, a night of free thinkers and free stuff that we at the College of Charleston like to call "in!Genius," I had the incredible opportunity to share my story with a theatre full of students, faculty, community members, and my dearest friends. Now that it has been told, I'd like to pack it away for awhile and work on creating some new stories. But for those of you who missed it, here it is. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

Oceans Always Feel

Rivers never fill the oceans, but oceans always feel the waters reaching deep inside them. I guess they always will. --Jars of Clay and Leigh Nash, "Mirrors & Smoke"

I think too much these days, but probably not about things I should think about (i.e. classes, homework, what in the world I'm going to write my Bachelor's Essay about, whether or not I'll apply to grad school). I made msemen (Moroccan pancakes) for breakfast this morning, which was incredibly time intensive, and as I kneaded and kneaded (the thing about msemen is that they need lots of kneading), I thought and thought. And most of my thoughts returned me to Morocco...naturally...

Msemen with homemade pear apple jam

Last Monday, I was sitting under my favorite tree on the College of Charleston campus for the first time in months, and my lovely friend Rebecca (who is affectionately known as Lil Becca around these parts) happened to walk by. She also happened to stop and call me out of my deep thoughts about why some trees grow up to be so twisted. She had just returned from a mission trip to Haiti over Spring Break, and I was eager to pick her brain. I think a lot about missions because my service with Bonner and the Alternative Break program have really redefined what "mission" looks like for me. Becca has had a similar transformation but for different reasons. And sitting under that tree, we talked for almost half an hour. She was still processing everything at that point, and I had chills because of how much I saw myself in her. I had such similar thoughts when I came back from Morocco. The sudden, unexpected reminder of Morocco actually made me tear up a little (gosh, that's embarrassing), and I looked up at the clouded sky in an attempt to keep the tears from spilling out.

Becca talked about going back to Haiti in the future. She mentioned how she doesn't know if she will ever change the infrastructure of an entire country or if she will make a widespread difference wherever she is. Instead, she said it's enough if she can just change one person's life. It's the same realization I had in Morocco. When I was singing Brett Dennen to Kamal, the most neglected person in the orphanage, I was filled with a knowledge that it was enough for me if I could just bring him joy for a few moments. In fact, I realized by the last day that it was enough for me if I could allow him (and the time with him) to bring me joy or to change me in some way. Good grief! It changed me so much. I recognized thought patterns I had about people with special needs that I detested. There is nothing joyful about hating the way your own brain forms thoughts. There is nothing joyful (or easy) about changing those patterns either. But I've been working on it. I do think differently now about people with special needs. I don't see myself as "normal" anymore and people whose bodies and minds don't work the same way mine does as abnormal/different/"special." I think too about the statistics for child sexual abuse and depression/anxiety: reportedly, 1 in 4 women are sexually abused before they reach 18 and 1 in 4 people live with depression/anxiety. 25% doesn't seem so abnormal to me anymore... What actually feels abnormal is that talking about topics like mental/physical disabilities, sexual abuse, and depression/anxiety is so taboo in our society. Why don't we talk about these things? Why don't we know how to act around people who have experienced/are experiencing them?

I have other thought patterns that I notice now--about race, gender, ethnicity, social class--that I don't like. I know they are products of my culture and my experiences, but I still hope I will be able to change them. It feels like I'm trying to change the tides of an ocean--an impossibility--but why not try?  It was so encouraging to hear Becca voicing some of the same thoughts I've been having about just changing one person's life or just letting herself be changed.

I could end with that overused quote from Mother Teresa about how if you can't feed a hundred people that you should just feed one...but I want to end with oceans. They're all around me here in Charleston and they were just out of each when I was in Rabat and Chefchaouen. People exhort the power of oceans, their stability and consistency. We find solace in their constant motion and the calculability of the tides. We don't like when oceans are unpredictable and produce typhoons, hurricanes. But so often we fail to realize how transient oceans are. You probably never set foot in the same water twice, as rivers are always pumping more water in and stealing water away. Oceans are always changing, and I think they know it even though we fail to realize it.

Sunday in Morocco: Everything I Needed

Morocco...where do I begin? I've been back in the country for a week and a half, and I am still processing EVERYTHING. So I won't begin with completion, but feel free to read my incomplete thoughts and questions about the most difficult trip I've ever been on.

My grandma said she saw it in my eyes: the anxiety, the knowledge that this trip would be different. She is much wiser than I am. I wasn't conscious of that knowledge I carried as I was scrambling around on the morning of Friday, December 28th--departure day. I should have known all along. The planning process was hectic...even more so than normal. I remember one Thursday when I’d spent over four hours in the Center for Civic Engagement watching my plans and my confidence as an Alternative Break trip leader (and leader in general) spiral downward. I got back to my room that night around 10:30 and melted against the closed door. When departure day arrived, I had given up all hope of the trip going “according to plan.” I didn’t even want that anymore. I hoped instead for the flexibility to respond to the chaos I was sure would happen.

And chaos happened.

The travel days were a nightmare I am not ready to relive, nor can I see the good in the experiences yet. Our first full day at the homebase (Sunday), my group of junior and senior Bonners had our orientation with Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS), a truly incredible organization that facilitates sustainable international service and productive cultural exchange. Mohammed, the country director in Morocco, is absolutely fantastic, and as he introduced us to the basics we needed to know about Morocco and about our three service sites, I felt relief sink in, all the way down to my socks (which, in an effort to make a good first impression on the CCS staff, actually matched that day). As a trip leader, I was hyper-aware of the impressions my entire group was making on the Moroccan staff and of the reactions of my group to what Mohammed was saying. There was nervousness when he talked about women in Morocco (Morocco is an Islamic country and most women wear head coverings. We were also unsure at that point how society treated them.) but a definite sense of excitement when we heard exactly what we would be doing at our service sites. I’ll talk more about that in a later post...still processing a lot...

We learned some Arabic after our orientation, and even though I consider myself blessed with the gift of quickly picking up languages, I still only know a few phrases: la, shokran, kidayr, smiti Elizabeth, snu smitek, bslama. Oops. It was fun to try, though.

The afternoon was completely free for us to explore and adventure, and in a moment of swift decision-making, Eliza (my fearless co-leader who also might be the single most amazing person in the world) and I decided our group was going to take a walk to a nearby park.I had low expectations...a park in Morocco? But as we wandered through beautiful, luxurious streets where the homebase was located, I spotted a vibrant green polo field, houses of ambassadors to Morocco mushroomed with satellite dishes, and flowering plants dripping over tall walls. I let my guard down a bit. I was in desperate need of some beauty after a day of international airports, lost luggage (just mine), a seven hour flight next to one of my trip participants who vomited the entire time, and a general lack of sleep.

The park, le forêt urbaine, was breathtaking. It was an expanse of land filled with trees straight out of Middle Earth and sudden soccer fields and playgrounds. There were trails that people were walking and running. It shocked me because I have, up until that point, made generalizations that exercise is a luxury to which only Americans are privileged. I assumed people in other countries do not have the "luxury" (really, it's an issue of enough capital, I think) of eating so much they need to exercise or the luxury of time and space to do so. I was wrong. Green space in a big city also used to feel like a luxury only in the States. Again, I was wrong. People in Morocco have those luxuries, too; at least the people in that particular wealthy neighborhood in Rabat do. What other places in the world defy my assumptions? Do Moroccans see spaces like this park and moments of exercise as luxury? This was the beginning of Morocco shocking me, making me think twice about everything...

We spent a while in le forêt urbaine, soaking up the sun (Morocco is a cold country in the winter with a very hot sun), meandering along paths, attracting all sorts of attention as Americans have the tendency of doing in other countries. We took pictures of the sunlight mystically filtering through tall white trees and scoped out the people of Morocco. It was restful and thought-provoking and everything I needed for the day.

Hope. Hope fell over me on Sunday. After great chaos, Sunday was a day of reclaiming: reclaiming why I was there, why I love travel, why I love languages, why I love service. Strangely, though, it wasn't me who got to do the reclaiming; Sunday reclaimed me. I needed that. Why? You'll see...oh, you'll see.