{"id":14269,"date":"2024-01-17T07:58:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T12:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=14269"},"modified":"2024-01-17T07:58:54","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T12:58:54","slug":"the-baddest-dude-pursuit-of-personal-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/?p=14269","title":{"rendered":"the baddest dude & pursuit of personal excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Once again this week my colleagues and I had opportunity to partake in the Orlando Mayor’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission. It\u2019s an opportunity to come together with the larger community to promote Dr. King\u2019s legacy; it\u2019s an opportunity to strengthen <\/em>our community, focusing on what Dr. King focused on: faith, equality and nonviolence. To omit any of the three, would compromise a significant component of Dr. King\u2019s advocacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s face it. Many today are passionate about strengthening community, yet are wholeheartedly ok with omitting some of the aforementioned components. I was thus intrigued with the recent interview with Clarence Jones, an attorney and speechwriter for Dr. King, by Francesca Block, a journalist with an Intramuralist fave resource, The Free Press. <\/em>Block sat down with Jones two weeks ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones is 93 now, living in Palo Alto, California. I love it; he says that \u201cMartin Luther King Jr. was the baddest dude I knew in my lifetime.\u201d<\/em> He also quickly conveys a similar line of thinking in regard to what we too conveniently omit today. \u201cRegrettably, some very important parts of his message are not being remembered.\u201d Jones specifically refers to the radical nonviolence and also to King\u2019s passion in building allies across ethnic lines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Block tapped into Jones\u2019s assessment of current racial progress. Writes Block:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked if America has made any progress on race, Jones is dumbstruck. \u201cAre you kidding?\u201d he said, with shock in his voice. \u201cAny person who says that to the contrary, any black person who alleges themselves to be a scholar, or any white person who says otherwise, they\u2019re just not telling you the truth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBring back some black person who was alive in 1863, and bring them back today,\u201d he adds. \u201cHave them be a witness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after the death of George Floyd in 2020, 44 percent of black Americans polled said \u201cequality for black people in the U.S. is a little or not at all likely.\u201d And \u201ccolor blindness\u201d\u2014the once aspirational idea of judging people by their character rather than their skin color, which King famously espoused\u2014has fallen out of fashion. The dominant voices of today\u2019s black rights movement argue that people should be treated differently because of their skin color, to make up for the harms of the past. One of America\u2019s most prominent black thinkers, Ibram X. Kendi, argues that past discrimination can only be remedied by present discrimination.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones makes it clear he doesn\u2019t want to live in a society that doesn\u2019t see race. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to be blind to color. You want to see color. I want to be very aware of color.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, he emphasizes: \u201cI just don\u2019t want to attach any conditions to equality to color.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He adds that it\u2019s possible to read Kendi\u2019s prize-winning book, \u2018Stamped from the Beginning,\u2019 and \u201ccome away believing that America is irredeemably racist, beyond redemption.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a theory he vehemently disagrees with. \u201cThat would violate everything that Martin King and I worked for,\u201d he said. It would mean \u201cit\u2019s not possible for white racist people to change.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I am telling you something,\u201d Jones adds. \u201cWe have empirical evidence that we changed the country.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interview continues with Jones admission that \u201cthere\u2019s no way in hell that he or we would have achieved what we achieved without the coalition support of the American Jewish community.\u201d Such acknowledgement again prompts thought of current day \u2014 and the tension we\u2019ve witnessed since Hamas\u2019s terrorist attack against Israel last October. \u201cIt pains me today when I hear so-called radical blacks criticizing Israel for getting rid of Hamas. So I say to them, what do you expect them to do? A black person being antisemitic is literally shooting themselves in the foot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No doubt learning from the wisdom of an elderly man who had such proximity to Dr. King is full of great value and opportunity. He knows what it means to truly strengthen community. Sharing with Block how he now sees his mission clearly as ever, he didn\u2019t hesitate to share a message for young black Americans \u2014 and much of his message, for us all\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommit yourself irredeemably to the pursuit of personal excellence. Be the very best that you can be. If you do that… our color becomes more relevant, because we demonstrate \u2018black is beautiful\u2019 not as some slogan, but black is beautiful because of its commitment to personal excellence, which has no color.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much each of us can learn\u2026 always\u2026 what an opportunity\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again this week my colleagues and I had opportunity to partake in the Orlando Mayor’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission. It\u2019s an opportunity to come together with the larger community to promote Dr. King\u2019s legacy; it\u2019s an opportunity to strengthen our community, focusing on what Dr. King focused on: faith, equality and nonviolence. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “the baddest dude & pursuit of personal excellence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14269"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14275,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269\/revisions\/14275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intramuralist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}