Why We Need MLK Day

Anticipating the holiday, I type “Martin Luther King” into Google and get a list of resources (5,280,000, to be exact). The first link takes me to the MLK Papers Project at Stanford University. The second accesses a resource from the Seattle Times. Third, I click on a link to The King Center in Atlanta. The server for this center is out of service. I am drawn to the next link in line, one entitled “Martin Luther King Jr.—A True Historical Examination.”

Web composers can use invisible words to entice readers. The site I look at pops up high on the list because it includes these keywords: Martin Luther King Jr, Civil Rights, Black History, Slavery, Reparations, Kwanzaa, Anti-Defamation League, ADL, anti-Semitism, racism, bigotry, hatred, prejudice, bias, Holocaust, Israel, democracy, terrorism, militia, Jews, Jewish, diversity.” Etc. The embedded description makes Google say, “The truth about Martin Luther King. Includes historical trivia, articles and pictures. A valuable resource for teachers and students alike."

A photograph of Dr. King overshadows the text initially, but a “Rap Lyrics” link in a larger font catches my eye so I click it. Instead of finding a rap song, I find a tirade against Jews that introduces a long list of violent rap lyrics taken out of context interwoven with news stories of white people killed or victimized by black people.

Appearances are deceptive, especially on the Internet. I click to return to the main page. Reading the text to the left of the image of Dr. King, I realize that this is not a King-friendly site. Even with letters missing, the expletives presented as Dr. King’s reported words are easy to figure out. To the right, there is a menu with seven options, all of which look informative. They are—if you’re into decrying King. And there’s more. “Attention students! Try our MLK pop quiz!” one teaser says. “Bring the Dream to life in your town! Download flyers to take to your school!” invites another. “Why the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday should be repealed” looms large.

I believe in freedom of speech. I also believe that children are not born racist. They have to be taught. These days, if a student wants to do a report on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he or she is likely to go to the Internet. There, people who do not venerate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are very good at making their case. That’s one more reason we need to remind children of the legacy of this great man. Perhaps children who study Dr. King in school or church, or both, will be able to put troubling information into perspective and make informed decisions about what they want to believe.

When I attended Booker T. Washington High School in South Carolina, one among the first white students to attend South Carolina’s oldest high school for African Americans, we pretended to have a radio station. We, black and white together, would huddle in a little room to play records and talk over the intercom. That’s where I first heard the words of “I Have a Dream,” which we broadcast to the school one January long ago in honor of a man who did not yet have a national holiday. My high school experience taught me why we needed one.

The fifth link in my long list of resources takes me to the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Park and related resources. It’s worth a look:

• http://www.nps.gov/malu/

If you have time, in fact, there are several million sites that you or your child can peruse, most of them reverent.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 12 January 2005, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2005.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

What’s the big deal? It’s just a bag of coffee beans. Or is it? For some reason, I can’t bring myself to open and grind a small bag of coffee beans from Sumatra, Indonesia, somebody gave to me for Christmas. I like the “woodsy” flavor of Sumatra Mandheling. It’s a coffee that I drink only now and then. If I drank it every day, it might not be my favorite. If I drank a cup today, I think I would get shivers down my spine.

Just consider how far these beans had to come to end up in my kitchen. They were grown, according to Allegro Coffee, on small farms by Batak natives living near Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra. The company that distributes the beans is careful to advertise that it works with small farms there to reinforce the principles of fair trade and environmental sustainability.

Sometimes farmers can work with the environment. Other times, as with tsunamis, the environment works against them. “Despite its wealth of natural resources,” says the “Lonely Planet Guide to Indonesia,” “Sumatra is struggling with a failing economy. The northern province of Aceh is at the epicentre of separatist violence and the area has been hit by devastating earthquakes.” That was the truth before last week’s earthquake. Given the current crisis, I have to wonder how much worse things can get for the people who live in Indonesia.

Within hours of the earthquake and the tsunami that followed, coffee moguls in the United States began reacting. In Washington, Scott Merle of Batdorf and Bronson spoke to “The Olympian.” "I've been getting updates from contacts in Sumatra, and it's not real scary for coffee," he said. "That's mostly because of where it grows, in the highlands—not anywhere near the coast. We skirted having something bad happen in terms of coffee." Merle finished by acknowledging that his company had a four-month supply of beans stashed away.

Dean Cycon, a distributor of fair-trade organic coffee beans based in Massachusetts, offered a different reaction. His company newsletter announced, “Our farmers suffered tremendous property damage in the mountains, many houses collapsed and roads were destroyed. The coffee warehouse in Takengon was partially destroyed, but the resourceful farmers turned the rest of the warehouse into shelter for the homeless families.” Now if you visit an Internet store to purchase Dean’s Beans, you may also donate to a relief fund, with 100% going to the farmers who work for Cycon’s company.

I’m cynical, but I’m hopeful. I want to believe that coffee corporations are more worried about “their” indigenous farmers than they are the coffee beans. My own bag of coffee says, “Growers are paid a premium for triple-handsorting the beans to produce a consistently outstanding coffee.” “Premium” is relative. I’m hoping that people who regularly drink Sumatran coffee are making a run on the beans left on the market and that the corporations here give even more profits back to the communities than they now do. I’m hoping they’ll pay more for future bean crops than fair exchange.

The label on my bag of beans says that the coffee would taste best brewed prior to December 29, 2004, a date that came and went as I watched the world watching the tragedy unfolding in all those communities by the Indian Ocean. I guess that means I should grind the beans and drink my coffee, but I’m going to wait until I deserve a cup. I can’t imagine opening it soon. Whenever I look at this bag, I see hands picking and sorting these coffee beans. Three times.

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 5 January 2005, p. A4. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2005.