Critical Days
April 4th is an important day for our country. It is the day Martin Luther King Jr. denounced the Vietnam war and called for a radical revolution in values, in 1967. It is also the day he was murdered, one year later. Over the past two years, this day has been acknowledged widely. In 2017 thousands of people gathered to read Breaking the Silence and discuss its meaning 50 years later. Last year, people gathered to consider how movements live beyond individuals, shifting and changing to overcome the challenges we all face.
This year, these events received little public attention. Perhaps these moments of collective experience are dimming. Most of the people who were part of them are gone now, especially those closest to King.
Still, in honor of that day, I always read King words. I find them a searing indictment of who we are, and a compassionate longing for who we might become. “America,” he says, “Can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So, it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.”
These words were still with me as I read the news of Donald Trump’s visit to the U.S.-Mexican border town of Calexico. There he announced. “Our country is full.” He said, “The system is full. We can’t take you anymore.” “Our country is full…Turn around.” He continued, “When it’s full, there is nothing you can do. You have to say, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t take you.’”
These words were followed by another threat to close the border and more bluster about the wall. Trump was especially flattered by a plaque that his Secretary of Homeland Security had installed in October of 2018, to ensure that Trump got credit for a little over two miles of new fence, initiated by his predecessor. It reads below the presidential seal, “This plaque was installed on October 26, 2018, to commemorate the completion of the first section of President Trump’s border wall.”
Missing from the entire affair was Trump’s nominee to head ICE, Ronald Vitiello, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Trump abruptly announced he was withdrawing the nomination because he wants someone “tougher” in charge of immigration enforcement.
Trump’s policies at the border are a crime against humanity. Last week the people held under a bridge, sleeping on gravel, were let go and the ACLU is filing a suit on their behalf. "The detention of migrants for multiple nights in outdoor detention pens is an unprecedented and extreme violation," the complaint says. "Although CBP has long violated the rights of migrants in its custody, the agency's decision to detain migrants, including children, in caged dirt filled outdoor areas is an escalation of this administration's cruelty. Without immediate attention and oversight, we will continue to risk the lives of those seeking refuge in our country."
King said of Vietnam, “Somehow this madness must cease” for it “is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.”
He reminds us that we must find new ways to act in love or, “We shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality ad strength without sight.”
Our children will remember what has happened to them and what we choose to do. These are critical days.