Commemorating Dr. King/ Standing with Haiti

Each year, on this day set aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, I enjoy reading speeches from across the nation and noting the themes that people are drawing upon from Dr. King's life and work. This year, three themes stand out:

--- Solidarity with and support for the people of Haiti. Not just relief during this time of tragedy, which is important, but looking at underlying structural and historical roots of the human-made tragedies of poverty and racism. 

--- Renewed commitment to peace, including just withdrawals from Iraq and Afganistan.

--- Heightened awareness that poverty, homelessness, joblessness and hopelessness affect all of us. In this post-financial-meltdown world, we can see a little more clearly that the  'inescapable network of mutuality' is more than fancy rhetoric. 

Dr. King's words about the causes of poverty have new resonance today: Why are there (over) 40 million poor people in America? When you begin to ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I am simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that  an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.

The kind of restructuring we need includes re-regulation of the financial sector and, more fundamentally, democratization of banking and other parts of our economy.

This year, one of my favorite MLK speeches was given by Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP. As we struggle in the days and months ahead to win reforms that move us toward economic and racial justice, let us remember: “The time is always right to do what is right.”

--SH

p.s. For information on a good Boston-based group that works closely with grassroots leaders in Haiti, check out Partners in Health.