Rites and rights and right?

This past weekend was the weekend that is normally one of the best at Rhodes. When my coach has me talk to basketball recruits about Rhodes and all of the exciting things that happen here in the off season, Rites of Spring always comes up as probably the best weekend during the school year. It’s full of all-day events, friends, and two free concerts that normally include some big names. Yet, this rites weekend happened to hit on the same day as another big showing of “rites”: The Memphis March for Our Lives. This march, organized mostly by students through the Bridges foundation, was in coordination with hundreds of other marches throughout the country in response to the Parkland High School shooting that resulted in the death of 17 innocent students on Valentine’s Day. Of the crowd of 1500 people that marched the streets of downtown Memphis, I was not one of them, and I regret it. While people were fighting for the rights and privileges just to feel safe within their school, most of the students at Rhodes (myself included) spent Friday and Saturday enjoying the ability to not have those worries and not support those that did.

Waking up Sunday morning after two days of concerts and festivities, I looked at the pictures on my phone from the weekend and felt the need to post some on Instagram for followers to see. It was rites, after all! Everyone I follow needs to know I had a great time, right? Scrolling through the feed of photos of my friends, I came across one of four Rhodes students at the march downtown, with the caption, “rites.” I instantly felt regret for putting myself above an entire country that felt the pain of the events that happened at Parkland about a month ago. In that moment, I felt the full force of being a middle-class, white, American woman attending a fenced in, liberal arts school.

A “right” is defined in this instance as “the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled.”² It also can be defined as “the cause of truth or justice.” “Rite”, on the other hand, is defined as “any customary observance or practice,” often used in a religious or solemn manner.³ Going off of these definitions, is Rites of Spring justly called a rite? And how much do we take advantage of our right as human beings lucky enough to attend a really good college during this weekend. Rites of Spring is great and I know I will enjoy it again next year. But this year was the first year, because of a nation-wide March that coincided with rites, that I felt an immense amount of guilt for the weekend. I could have easily shown support for both “rights” and “rites,” and I choose only the first. I spent much of Sunday reflecting on my role in society. Do the words of King right true today when he talks about the “white moderate,” just as they did during the Civil Rights Movement? Am I doing my part and doing what’s right?

1. Pignolet, Jennifer.  ‘Enough is enough’: Memphis students, families march against gun violence. Commercial Appeal. March 24, 2018.

2. "Right." Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed March 26, 2018. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/right.

3. “Rite.” Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. Accessed March 26, 2018. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/rite.

Racism in Sports

    Within the world of sports in America, racism seems to be developing into more of a situation if not a major situation. For the most parts of the past couple of years, positions that have been taken in sports have brought different divisions upon our nation for the good of progression. There was a personal account that a football player described that he felt where he saw the racism that was taking place throughout the world he lived in, and knew he could no longer play football. He felt that getting out and taking a stand to change the world he lived in was more important than continuing to play a sport.
     We see these positive strides that are being taken from black athletes meant to do good for the passions they have which is only meant with resistance from the white community. We see black individuals using their current setting as a platform to voice their movements, but it seems that the white community of the world becomes bitter with these ideals. The problem is that white individuals like the way the world is because they are comfortable in the current context they live in and do not want things to change. The societal norms that our society has created has developed systematic racism throughout the nation.
     Being an athlete, it is very encouraging to see people taking stands for passions they have outside of the sport, but it is also disheartening to see the backlash that is given. A lot of times people associate athletes with not knowing anything that is not dealing with sports. Collin Kaepernick used the platform he had to stand up for something he believed in, but instead he received backlash. The backlash he got where different levels of accusation for disrespect and not knowing his place which was not at all the intent he had. Kaepernick wanted to send a message, a progressive message, but instead the message was taken in all different aspects and perceptions. Through this movement, the nation split ultimately showing the different characteristics of systematic racism. I think the overwhelming question is how do we as a nation allow individuals to use their platforms for things they believe in without being offended? How do we listen more and talk less? How do we let movements move in progressive ways? Why do we get so offended on topics that need to be addressed?

The Legacy of Civil Rights in the 1980s

I found a document written by Kenneth B. Clark, a psychologist and civil rights activist, in 1980. The document attempts to provide a sort of prologue for the 1980s as well as Clark’s hopes for the decade. He begins his prologue with a presidential committee in 1946, which was tasked with inquiring into the condition of civil rights and making recommendations for improvements. Though the committee was often overlooked at the time, Clark notes its importance; for the first time in U.S. history, a president was recognizing that there might be something wrong with civil rights. The committee returned with a report that called for “the elimination of segregation based on race, color, creed, or national origin,” in all aspects of American life. To Clark, this signaled an important change in the future of United States. At the same time, he was hesitant to be too optimistic, as any push toward racial equality in the past had been overturned or overlooked. Nonetheless, this time proved to be different as activists and court decisions like Brown v. Board began to spell lasting racial changes in the country, however slow they were.

While Clark recognized a number of positive changes that occurred in the decades leading up to 1980, he also recognized some shortcomings. Public schools across the country remained segregated, with white students in Memphis, Atlanta and Chicago leaving public integrated public schools for private ones. He especially lambasted the Northern U.S., which made claims of commitment to racial justice, but repeatedly acted against it. Clark also notes that the economic situation for many African Americans has remained largely unchanged, as the majority of them held unskilled and semi-skilled blue collar jobs, which resulted in less pay for the community overall. Unemployment was also still a major issue along racial lines, with the 1977 jobless rate 6.3 percent for whites and 13.2 percent for blacks, over twice as much. These racial differences in employment were even more jarring among certain age groups, like youths. Black youth unemployment rates were as high as 55 percent in some communities, while the white youth unemployment rate peaked around 15 percent.

To Clark, the Civil Rights movement experienced mixed results. As a result of activists in the 1940s-70s, African Americans were able to, and did, vote in larger numbers in more places. At the same time, economic inequalities and discrimination in schooling practices persisted. Many of these triumphs and pitfalls are still present today, and they shape the ways in which we understand the complex history and legacy of the Civil Rights movement as a whole.

Source: https://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/getobject.pl?c.530:1.bltc.10875.10881.10884.10895.10899

Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington

I found an interview with Bayard Rustin from May 8, 1985 on the Black Thought and Culture database. The interview is centered on the events leading up to and during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that occurred on August 28, 1963. Rustin begins the interview with a brief overview of A. Philip Randolph’s beliefs about activism and protests during the 1940s-60s. According to Rustin, Randolph initially planned a march on Washington in 1941-42, but ended preparation after President Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination in the national defense industry. Though this was by no means total racial equality in employment, Randolph and the labor organization that he ran viewed the order as a successful step in the right direction. Two decades later, Randolph headed the planning for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but he understood the event as a sort of finality for public protests and mass media coverage. The United States were changing and further racial justices needed to be fought in the field of economics. Randolph knew that voting rights and education rights were important, but that “unless we could improve the economic status, which would be done through jobs, those freedoms could never really be exercised.” Economics were, and remain, a driving force in access to these things, and so long as African Americans were systemically denied economic equality, they would continue to lack educational and political equality.

Though these were Randolph’s intentions going into the march, the clear message of economic advancement was muddled after President Kennedy announced the civil rights bill. After the bill went public, the march pivoted to a message of “pass the bill” rather than “advance black economic opportunities.” The march that Randolph painstakingly planned to address the primary issue that he saw plaguing the African American community was quickly turned into yet another civil rights demonstration. 18 months later, the Randolph Institute released “A Freedom Budget for All Americans,” which aimed to address economic problems facing the African American community, but by then the moment had passed and the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful.

This interview shows to us how the March on Washington melded into the event that we all know. What started out as a rally for economic justice changed into one for civil rights, the one thing its primary organizer feared it would become. It also brings up interesting questions about what could have happened. What would have happened to the March’s message if the Civil Rights Act hadn’t been announced? Would we have legislation that mirrors the “Freedom Budget?”

Source: https://bltc.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/getobject.pl?c.206:1.bltc.2426.2432.2435.2446.2450

"Make American Great Again"....but was it ever "Great"?

              What would Martin Luther King think of Donald Trump? I do not think Dr. Martin King Jr. would not be pleased. Many of Trumps beliefs surround the idea of making all business in the United States and severing ties and relationships to other countries. Martin King Jr., was very involved with relationships with people overseas.  In a Newsweek article they state, "If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was still alive, he would be speaking the idea that we're one people, we're one family, we all live in the same house," Lewis said Sunday, "not just American house, the world house, that we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters. If not, we will perish as fools."[1]One of Kings hung beliefs is to treat equally and with complete fairness and that is not was Trump is working towards. Trumps raciest comments humiliate the United States and we as Americans have become a huge joke to the rest of the world. Later in the same article it states, “’I don't think there's any way that you can square what the president said with the words of Martin Luther King Jr.,’ Lewis said in response to Trump's comments about immigrants. ‘It's just impossible ... It's unbelievable. It makes me sad. It makes me cry.’”[2] Trump is racially ignorant mainly because there has become thought as rude to talk about race a white person. I disagree with this unspoken “rule” whites need to be aware of their privilege and use their voice to speak out against racist comments, even if it is from the president. During President Trumps 2016 campaign Trump claimed he was the “least racist person there is” which is just a joke. Reverend Raphael Warnock the pastor at Ebenezer Church said, “The Trump era ... is a direct assault on the legacy of Dr. King”.[3] Trump still uses phrases such as “inner cities” which carries a lot of racial insensitivity.[4] Phrases such as that assumes that all black citizens still live in separate sections of the city. It also implies that whites are the majority and people of color are the minorities. It is one more way that he says that he is better than others without actually saying it. Trumps slogan “Make America Great Again” is saying that America was once great, but it was never great to start with. All that knew and respected Dr. Martin Luther King all believe that he would not approve of a current president but neither does the majority of the country.

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[1]Guarnieri, Grace. "Civil rights leader John Lewis says Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not be pleased with Trumps America." Newsweek. January 14, 2018. Accessed March 02, 2018. http://www.newsweek.com/mlk-trump-america-john-lewis-781076.

[2]Guarnieri, Grace. "Civil rights leader John Lewis says Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not be pleased with Trumps America." Newsweek. January 14, 2018. Accessed March 02, 2018. http://www.newsweek.com/mlk-trump-america-john-lewis-781076.

[3] Press, Associated. "Martin Luther King Jr's daughter says Trump's presidency is an opportunity for the US to 'correct itself'." Business Insider. January 13, 2018. Accessed March 02, 2018. http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-leaders-say-trump-presidency-is-at-odds-with-mlks-legacy-2018-1.

[4]Joseph, Peniel. "What MLK might say to Donald Trump." CNN. January 16, 2017. Accessed March 02, 2018. https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/15/opinions/mlk-trump-lewis-lynch-joseph-opinion/index.html.