The Beloved Community

[hfojvt]

http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy#sub4

"As early as 1956, Dr. King spoke of The Beloved Community as the end goal of nonviolent boycotts. As he said in a speech at a victory rally following the announcement of a favorable U.S. Supreme Court Decision desegregating the seats on Montgomery’s busses, “the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”"

...

"In his 1963 sermon, Loving Your Enemies, published in his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King addressed the role of unconditional love in struggling for the beloved Community. ‘With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.”"

[patrice]

1. Paulo Freire would say that Dr. King knew that we must also free ourselves from the oppressor whom

each of us has internalized by becoming like that oppressor. So freeing others is also about freeing ourselves and freeing ourselves is also about freeing others, freeing all from the same things and freeing all for what each of us is becoming individually and collectively together, because each of those, individual and group, are the complement of the other. They empower one another and evoke potential that is greater than any of the individual.

[hfojvt]

2. I don't like it when people talk about what other people "knew"

Probably King would agree though that if the oppressor hates or has contempt for the oppressed that it would be very easy for the oppressed to hate or have contempt for the oppressor. And King was against hate.

These days though, I am not sure about the concept of "oppressor". I like this concept of the triple evils.

"The Triple Evils of POVERTY, RACISM and MILITARISM are forms of violence that exist in a vicious cycle. They are interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community."

Except that further down "racism" seems to be expanded to "bigotry" and "militarism" expanded to "violence".

But if poverty is the enemy then that does not point to any group of "oppressors".

Some might say that the 1% are oppressors, but that seems fuzzy to me. I mean, if the cut off for being a member of the top 1% is $350,000 a year, then you would have somebody who makes $360,000 a year as an "oppressor" and somebody who makes $340,000 as a non oppressor.

Others would point to an even smaller group of "oppresors" - those who make a living off of their investments. But many fairly low income retired people are making a living mostly from their investments. Further if somebody is making, say $70,000 a year from their investemnts, they are an oppressor, but somebody making a salary of $5 million a year is not?

But again, it sorta depends on whether the enemy is "poverty" or if the enemy is some shadowy group of oppressors, or some larger group, like the usual suspects - white people, males, Christians, heterosexuals - or just those who are all four.

This online community seems more concerned with spewing hate on the "groups" we supposedly oppose than in proposing solutions to things like poverty and war. Or we get fixated on people. We are gonna solve these problems, not by carrrying out certain policies, but by electing certain people to office - Democrats, progressive Democrats. Once we elect Warren as President and fill the Senate and House with a bunch of Tammy Baldwins and Alan Graysons, the rest will take care of itself.

[patrice]

3. I should have said that there are similarities in things they said, so we might hypothesize that

they had more or less similar or the same understandings.

[patrice]

4. Interesting how you start out this post by doing the very thing you object to in ending it. nt

[hfojvt]

5. Cottleston pie

"A fly can't bird
but a bird can fly
ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston pie" Winnie the Pooh

[hfojvt]

6. well I thought it was a neat concept

even though it has no chance of ever catching on

even though we supposedly honor the person who promoted it

[Whovian]

7. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing this.

[hfojvt]

8. I got a link to it yesterday from the Daily Howler

and I thought "Damn, that is awesome, Why haven't I heard about that before? I bet lots of other people have not heard about it."

So I thought I would share it here, thinking that many would also find it inspiring and challenging.

[hfojvt]

9. I am curious about something

bear with me here