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martin

the book about dr. king that i read to my students on monday had me tearing up a bit, but i guess that's okay.

they get it. they get the absurdity that was segregation. they get what the whole thing is about. they understand what it is to be so angry that someone has mistreated you that you want to use your hands and not your words to fight back. they understand the power of loving words, and the impulse toward fairness and what is right. the know the value of what he did and said and taught and showed.

when they asked me why someone shot and killed him, a thousand different ways to answer shuffled through my mind. i settled on, 'because they didn't like what he was doing and they wanted him to stop.' by this point we had collectively determined that what he was doing was good. contemplating this event brought to a whole other level my frequent admonition: 'if you don't like what someone is doing, you need to talk to them about it and use your words to tell them to stop, but you may not disturb their body.'

one of my students said to me, after we read the story (after i regained my composure and surreptitiously brushed the tears from my eyelashes), 'i think maybe i will be a person like that someday.' and i believe that probably she will, and i told her as much.

then, a little while later, she was contemplating his fate, and said, 'but i'm afraid that if i become a person like that, someone will not like what i'm doing and want to hurt me, too.'

so we had a conversation about bravery and fear and the pursuit of justice. the conversation is not over yet ...

m

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think the key is for her to realise that no one can hurt your spirit or your ideas.
7:50 am
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