Would Martin Luther King, Jr. be disappointed in me today? I struggle with this question as I type this reflection on this feast day of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King wrote:
“… [O]ver the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate…. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
While it’s true that King stated that the white moderate of his time was “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice,” with which I do not relate in the big, I can definitely see myself in his accusation at the level of the day-to-day. Consider his implication of the white moderate “who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” In a corporate setting, have you held your tongue as you’ve been the recipient or observer of a micro-aggression? I sure have, and I regret not having spoken up at the time.
During a business trip to another country, I was in a car filled with the entire male contingent of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) of the business unit for which I worked. While en route to a presentation to some of the staff at a location in that country, one of the members of the team made a homophobic joke about being patted down by the security guard at the airport. Since the enterprise-wide executive sponsor of the LGBT business resource group (BRG) was in the limo with us, I expected him, as an ally, to say something. At the time, I was the junior-most member of the SLT and the only LGBT person. Simply put, I didn’t feel safe calling out my colleagues for their homophobic banter, and I was hoping someone else would stand up for me.
I lived with that regret for a few years until I raised an objection to a policy at a different employer that was rolling out separate BRGs for separate classes of employees. I observed that the people in the BRGs had more in common as they move about the world than their titles would indicate inside the walls of our business. I knew voicing my concern would have negative consequences for me, and I was willing to accept whatever consequences came my way because I didn’t want to live with the same sort of regret I endured for failing to speak up at my prior workplace.
So, today, as I contemplate the way of justice and peace as Martin Luther King, Jr. exemplified in his teachings and actions, I recall the words of one of his contemporaries whom we lost mere months ago. In the words of John Lewis, may we all have the courage and faith to make “good trouble.” Depending on your circumstances, that may require calling out a micro-aggression against you or speaking up as an ally when you witness such behaviors against others. Or, you may be in a position to enact policies that create a more just workplace, community or nation.
Regardless our position, we can all attend an unconscious bias training, learn more about the painful history of race relations in the United States and commit to taking an action for social justice. If we all do these things, we have a good chance of fulfilling King’s hope “that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”