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Jan. 18, 2007
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Much accomplished, much to do
in race relations |
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Priest examines ‘dream deferred’ at King Day observance |
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MILWAUKEE — When organizers of the Catholic community’s 16th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prayer service asked Fr. Bryan Massingale to be the featured presenter, they asked him to speak about “A Realistic Look at Race Relations – Then and Now.” He did, but he did so in the context of the Langston Hughes poem “A Dream Deferred.”
Speaking to more than 400 people at St. Michael Church Jan. 15, Fr. Massingale, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said they were there to do more than merely remember the late civil rights leader.
“We must consider the meaning of his life and message, not just remembering it, for remembering it would put him safely in the past, safely distant and removed from our times and issues,” the priest said.
While drawing upon history, particularly Rev. King’s 1957 speech “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” Fr. Massingale noted, “King is more relevant today than he was when he was alive. He has lessons to teach us that we haven’t yet begun to learn.”
Noting that “racial realists” were comprised of optimists and pessimists, the priest said the former would say, “We’ve come a long, long way,” while the pessimists would say, “We have a long, long way to go,” citing the minister’s “Realistic Look” speech.
Fr. Massingale said that racial optimists “have a file full of names to pull out to settle any dispute about racial injustice today.” He noted that they cite Oprah, Michael Jordan, Colin Powell, Tiger Woods, and Condoleezza Rice.
The priest, an associate professor of theology at Marquette University, said that there are racial pessimists among whites and blacks. The white pessimists contend that because they are “intellectually, morally and spiritually inferior … little that can be done for black and brown people.”
Fr. Massingale said that white pessimists advocate “containment,” e.g., building bigger prisons, giving longer prison terms, putting more police on the streets.
“Restricting their access to Mayfair and Bayshore Malls, which is the real point behind those signs telling young people they have to be gone by 9 p.m.,” he said.
The priest of nearly 24 years noted that among black racial pessimists there is “no hope,” a belief that they won’t get a fair shake from whites, so they won’t try.
While acknowledging his agreement with optimists who contend that more black people are making it today than ever before, the priest added, “Despite the progress we’ve made, things are still bleak for people of color today.”
He cited as “evidence of social indifference” the 103 homicides in Milwaukee last year of which, he said, the victims were “mostly black and brown young men.”
“This passed without public concern, public outcry,” the priest said. “Yet, three people died of an e-coli outbreak that was traced to spinach. It was front page news for the rest of the week. One hundred and three die. No notice. Three die from spinach. We all notice.”
Fr. Massingale offered three answers, based upon the teaching of Rev. King, to the question, “Why does race still matter?”
“Racial isolation from one another. Because of this isolation we are calloused,” he said.
To support his point, the priest asked his audience to take an imaginary trip with him east on North Avenue, starting at Highway 100, and to notice huge yards, well-kept houses, nicely constructed roads, and the look of the business district – until one comes to 60th Street.
“This street tells you the complexion of people changes almost overnight,” he said.
“Black folks, litter, potholes, and chicken shacks. It looks shabby.”
Where North intersects at Oakland Avenue, one sees an upscale grocery store, mansions, a historic theater and a hospital.
“Blacks and whites live only miles apart, but they may as well be parallels, non-intersecting unions,” he said.
The priest’s second answer was that social progress, e.g., decent jobs, improved health, child care, costs money.
“When America looks at real equality, it decides to settle for decency and improvement instead,” he said.
Fr. Massingale’s third answer was, “There is a fundamental ambivalence in white America concerning racial equality.”
He said “most Americans today are committed to interracial decency and respect,” but that the “majority want to preserve white social privilege.”
“They are uneasy with injustice but they are not yet willing to pay a significant price to eradicate it,” the priest added.
Fr. Massingale admitted being pulled between the racial reality poles of optimism and pessimism.
“I struggle not to become a pessimist, not to despair. I want to end with a word of hope.
“I don’t know. We’ve been asking for so long, ‘What has happened to a dream deferred?’“ he said.
He related an exchange with his spiritual director in which he told her that he wanted to see results, he wanted to reap the benefits rather than prepare the way for others.
“I want to see success here and now,” he told her. “She stopped me short when she asked me a simple question, ‘Where would you be if your grandparents thought the way you do?’“
He told the audience that the question took him back to when he was 6-years-old and to a conversation he had with his grandmother while she was driving them to a store. They were stopped at an intersection and he wanted to know when they would go.
“‘We’ll go as soon as the people stop going by,’” he recalled her saying.
“Grandma, what are they doing? Why are they marching?”
“‘Bryan, they’re marching for your rights. They’re marching to set us free.’”
Those words, he said, give him hope.
“I know I could not be here doing what I do now if it were not for what they did then. I know that. I know that I am here because a whole lot of people marched even when they didn’t know who was coming after them. A whole lot of people struggled even though they didn’t know what the fruit would bear,” he said. “A whole lot of people did what they did not knowing the seed they planted would grow into the tree I’ve become. A whole lot of people did a whole lot of praying and singing and sweating and suffering and they did it in the hope that one day someone like me, whose name they didn’t know, would continue the fight.”
Fr. Massigale said that generations will not be able to do what they need to do “if we don’t act and pray now.”
“We act not for ourselves, but act so that God will have the glory and yield the harvest whose fruit we can’t even imagine,” he said. |
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