“We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers and sisters.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , “Beyond Vietnam,” 1967.

On this day, when we commemorate and celebrate the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., there is still much work to do in the United States to make his vision a reality.  While the quote above is talking about those we sought to vanquish in the Vietnam War, it could easily apply to those now living in the United States, who have been deemed by the current administration as “enemies.”  Regardless of legal status, race, national origin, innocence, guilt, or accident, we have stopped treating people as family and have instead sought to banish and punish people based on false assumptions and group-think fears. And those who have used their voices to protest this mistreatment and injustice have been defunded, detained, dehumanized, and killed. Shouldn’t a shared humanity trump cruelty and hate? Who have we become?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  also said this, “[r]eturning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

I believe we are currently in a starless night. Maybe the ambient fury of those who are afraid to have brothers and sisters is obscuring our ability to find the stars. Education is a start. Combatting misinformation, stereotyping, scapegoating, and willful blindness are where we, as educators, can help the constellations shine because “[n]othing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

In 1957, Dr. King said, “[s]omewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.”

He went on to say, “[t]here’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate.”

We can choose love. It is always an option—hate is not a good look for anyone.

(Liz Stillman)