15th
Martin Luther King, Jr. named three sins of our nation that were intrinsically complicit in fueling a pre-civil rights America: militarism, racism and materialism. That was a long time ago, and many believe we are living in a failed post-civil rights America. Few would argue that a country where the life expectancy of an African American male is less than the average Sri Lankan fails to meet the description of King’s “dream.”
In post-civil rights America, we are wading through the murky waters of these same three sins MLK named for us, and they are being realized in three symbols: the war, the wall and the well.
The war. America is a nation at war. It sounds crazy to think we’re actually involved in more than one war. I grew up listening to my grandfathers talk about World War II. The reality of conflict and combat abroad was terrifying, and the social impact that had on those who stayed home and lived in the US meant tremendous sacrifices.
Today, compassion fatigue for the wars has so diluted our sensibilities that we couldn’t chase down a death count if forced. Even as the news prints and reports the causalities, most Americans can’t name a single fallen soldier by name. The war has become a familiar narrative to which we’ve grown so accustomed, we’re unable to cringe at its horrifying reality and effect on our world. Perhaps this is the new manifestation of the sin of militarism of which Dr. King spoke.
The wall. With the passing of Arizona’s new immigration law, all eyes are fixed on Mexico. But what is Mexico and who are Mexicans? Even a brisk look at American history reminds us that one point the so-called “New World” wasn’t yet divided up and separated into territories. And once that exercise of division happened, Texas, much of California, and other parts of what are now US states were actually included in Mexico. To this day, how many towns and cities in those two states bear Spanish names? But a short-sighted and thin sense of memory has affected popular opinion profoundly.
According to some, building a wall along the US-Mexican border is the solution to the relational strains we’ve experienced with our Southern neighbor. But is this the answer? Or could it be that this wall is more than a containment effort? Perhaps our perception of Mexico is an externalized abstraction that has inflated and shrank in size and power since the invasion of European explorers. With a shortsighted and thin sense of memory, our country is now legislating a dangerous form of what can be viewed as legalized racial profiling. These new laws and the construction of the wall is a statement of intolerance of the so-called “other.” Racism is racism, even if it lives in a different zip code and carries an accent.
The well. As thousands and thousands of barrels of oil gush from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, Americans are angry—not at themselves for demanding such excessive energy consumption levels, but at the government and BP for being unable to bandage the open wound of our materialistic sensibilities.
Could it be that this hemorrhage symbolizes more than an eco-accident? The unaccountable over-consumption of those of us in the so-called developed world has literally wounded the earth and now it is bleeding. Maintaining our current levels of consumption requires continued violence to the earth and risks additional catastrophes.
Maybe these three realities—the well, the wall and the war—have converged in the same moment so that we would realize their connectedness. The wars we are fighting are in large part connected to our need for affordable oil; the cheaper the oil, the more we can and will consume here in the US. The well is quickly becoming a shrine to our out of control consumption rates; current consumption rates are really only sustainable for a small minority, so we need to keep that population of consumers small and protected by a wall.
Together, they remind us that we are still bound by the sins that created the environment and conditions for a civil rights movement. Though our current conflict might not be as egregious as the fight for civil rights, it is one that we need to find ourselves fighting for again.
