MLK Day of Observance with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill

I wish, I truly wish, I could journal this experience up into a single blog post for you guys, but that is not at all possible. The fact that I am able and courageous enough to continue to struggle for freedom. The fact that I am able to use my voice as power in this movement. The fact that so many lives were changed, doubts were affirmed, and spirits were renewed. I have no words for that type of love.

Me, being the nerd that I am, had a journal and pen ready to scribble down all of the tokens Dr. Hill left us with. Read and be renewed.

On the media:
"They want us there, not to fix it, but to talk about it."

"You control how people think about the news just by writing a headline. You set the table for how the world consumes a story."

"I don't think about the debate as a space to change minds. I think about the dialogue as a space to change minds."

"We don't trust our own institutions to tell us the news."

On the Black Freedom Struggle:
"This commencement is birthed out of struggle. Every year that we do it, there are people that believe that this work is less necessary."

"The Black National Anthem is a song that emerges out of struggle. And in the midst of that struggle we never said lift black voices, lift marginalized voices. We said Lift EVERY Voice and Sing."

"This tradition ain't about being in front. That's not about freedom. That's not about justice. That's about you."

On the structure of whiteness and power"
"You need the entire infrastructure of over policing for Ferguson to exist."

"White misery is a lot less tolerable in the U.S. We literally had to whiten the face of poverty to make it real."

"The construct of whiteness, itself, is power."

On the American Contradiction: 
"There's a bunch of people who are good at weddings and bad at marriage. America is terrible at marriage."

"At the same time that the state is shrinking, the war is expanding."

"We build first class jails and second class schools."

"I don't have time to worry about poverty because I'm worried about the environment. I can't worry about education because I'm worried about prison. As if there's not a school to prison pipeline."

"They say Negros can't read and write but make it illegal to teach Negros to read and write. They say we're lazy, but make us slaves. They say we're incompetent, but we raise your children."

"It wasn't a speech about dreams, It was a speech about broken promises."

On poverty:
"The suburbanization of poverty."

"People say, 'They died in a zip code that doesn't matter.'"

"People work every day and the months just last longer than the money."

"Living in a poor neighborhood shouldn't mean you get a poor school."

Final Tokens:
"Dr. King wouldn't be endorsing candidates. He'd be prophesying to them."

"To listen to others is to see the inherent humanity of all voices. Begin the work of listening."

"The nation is stronger when our coalition is connected."

"We come out of a tradition of people who put their very bodies on the line."

"If we are going to do this work, we have to choose to be brave."

"Marches, protests, sit-ins are the light of accountability."

"Is there anybody who believes in humanity in its entirety?"