The deafening sound of silence

Author’s note: I’m standing with many of our African American, Asian American and Latin American friends behind bars today, along with a handful of foreigners, to celebrate this national holiday. Here's my blog.

A lot of replays of MLK’s I HAVE A DREAM speech yesterday in church services, and today in holiday gatherings across our land. How we love to hear these words: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’"

Among the bigger questions that we must honestly face, however, are these: Do we really believe that? And, if so, what are we going to do about it?

Let’s face it. King got very specific in his speech. He wasn’t just pontificating. He was giving examples: I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification… .

Does that sound a lot like people in our country’s highest offices right now?

I realize that some are not of the opinion that Dr. Martin Luther King was one of America’s great heroes, let alone a prophet. But for those cynics, what about Jesus? Any argument, any debate, about where he stood?

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

The holiday is here, and I believe that Dr. King had some powerful messages about silence which we must face head-on.

For example, he said:  "There comes a time when silence is betrayal."

I interpret that to mean that if we piously sang In Christ There Is No East or West yesterday, and even though we grumblingly concede that King deserves a day in his honor…even if we do all that, but then ignore the backward steps we as a nation are taking toward people of different colors and different ethnic backgrounds, we aren’t doing enough.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

I’ll put my interpretation on that quote, also: If party still comes before country, and if we remain immobile as we cling to outdated thoughts about people of different colors and beliefs, we aren’t doing enough.

Dr. Martin Luther King, and human beings with a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, are looking at us, eyeball to eyeball right now, thinking these words: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Not taking a bold stand on racism: That silence can be deafening!