Some Reflections on MLK Day

My advisor's book, Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution, concludes with a line: "The history of early modern American freedom was not a story of attacks on the exclusive club of owners of liberty in order to destroy it or replace it with an entirely new one. Rather, it was a lengthy chronicle of diverse group pounding at the gates and demanding membership."

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I don't claim myself to be an expert in 20th century U.S. history. However, while MLK Day has diverse meanings for different people, for me, it marks an extraordinary achievement in the process of acquiring human rights. I don't believe in natural rights. I think that no right is "natural." The only way to acquire rights is fighting for them! Human history consists of a series of events within which people fought for their social, economic, and political rights. Thus, rights are actually culturally constructed after people "pounding at the gates and demanding membership." Liberty was a privilege rather than natural right in eighteenth century America. It is still not a "natural right" today despite the increase of its membership.

It takes time and efforts to make rights culturally accepted. Edmund Burke supported American rights, but was against the French Revolution. One of the reasons was that he thought that the rights that the Americans asked for were embedded in their own tradition, while the French Revolution signified a huge break from French political tradition. It turned out that France, as Burke predicted, turned into autocracy during the French Revolution. The true realization of political rights has to come along with the rights being culturally accepted. In history, revolutions and modern social movements had played a major role in bringing in new ideas and concepts. Even though a lot of ideas were not culturally accepted in the beginning, they were gradually recognized by and integrated into respective cultures.

The end of Civil War terminated legal slavery but did not end mental, spiritual, and social slavery: the racist idea of white supremacy. The African Americans did not truly enjoy their legal and political rights as accredited by amendments and other legislations. They were viewed as inferior race with less capability and uncivilized dispositions. Such racial biases impeded them from being educated and respected. Lacking education and social capital, it was difficult for them to get rid of poverty and rise to upper social status.

Some people believe that the racial issue is more political than social, and thus has become a political tool. It has truly become a political tool played by both parties. But there are good reasons that it becomes political. I think that the racial issue is almost unbreakable because it is culturally embedded. This cultural image is further reinforced by visible unfortunate condition of many African Americans, and the underlying causes, such as social inequity, preset bias, and class nepotism, are ignored in this image. It yields a miserable cycle. Bias along with stereotypes restrict their opportunities, no matter in education or in employment.

Race is not the only factor that will cause discrimination or stimulate unjust bias and treatments. Lately, gender is another popular issue, especially with the MeToo movement. On the other hand, all these issues — race, gender, and class — result from the relation between ourselves and others. Self-centrism, which place ourselves or the people "like us" in the center of our world, and regard ourselves higher than others, is the source of all the bias and discrimination. This means two things for me. First, racism or any other power-relation-based oppression is not going to disappear because it is the ugly part of human nature. Second, we have to remember that we don't have to comply with such selfish nature, and that we should not create new oppression as we try to eliminate the one we are facing right now.