Projection and the trivialization of racial inequality continues apace. Since the height of the Civil Rights Movement there has been a backlash that has taken the thought that black people have just been “playing the victim”. This line of thinking has led many to believe that legitimate concerns are just tools to be deployed to cow opposition which has been adopted wholesale by conservatives in order to advance their agenda. This cynicism in the face of legitimate suffering has impeded the ability of our nation to move past inequalities that persist to this day.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We celebrate the man for the incredible strides he helped make for civil rights and the way he’s changed the world. One thing that is overlooked is perhaps the most important and vital trait the man had, perspective.
So I’ve recently moved back to Austin and I’ve promised myself I’ll do all the things I missed out on last time I was here. for school and I complained almost endlessly about seeing the same folks. But I never did anything different. All too often I hear people complaining about how they hate where they stay but they do nothing but sit in the house all day.
A young man is born of poor circumstances, albeit in a privileged nation. He does well in school but decides that instead of applying himself in the classroom his time is better spent participating in illicit activities. While beginning a criminal lifestyle at a young age he matures enough to realize that the illegal lifestyle isn’t the one for him and he begins to nurture what is seemingly his most marketable skill for a man in his position. He works hard but is denied entry into his chosen field by the established powers thus without options for an institutional approval he starts his own. Through hard work and business savvy over several years he finds himself not only thriving in his chosen profession but is an institution within the field himself.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
Never before have these words rang truer than they do today. We distill our personalities and thoughts into edible 140 character bites. Our relationships are mapped out and put on display for the world to see. With these instantaneous forms of expression the filter between one’s brain and public declaration has grown razor-thin. In a society that based itself upon modesty and the projection decency such a development has radically changed the rules of relationships between people in ways that I believe isn’t yet fully comprehended by society.
In 1992 
