On Dr. King’s “Dangerous Unselfishness” in the Year 2018

I recently re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 Memphis remarks given on the eve of his assassination. He spoke on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Of course Dr. King wants us to be like the Samaritan who aids a man felled by thieves on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. But he spends significant empathy on the motivations of the Levite and priest who pass the man by:

“It’s possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road…in the days of Jesus it came to be known as the “Bloody Pass.” And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

Previously in the speech Dr. King called on the audience to use its economic might to boycott companies accused of unfair treatment, including, at the time, Coca-Cola, Sealtest milk, Wonder Bread and Hart’s bread. He pushed the audience to invest with Black banks, and use Black insurance companies. He extolled Black America’s consumer power. In 1968, Black America’s annual income of thirty billion dollars would rank it ninth amongst the world’s nations.

But with the Good Samaritan parable, Dr. King exhorted his audience to put their bodies on the line and stand with Memphis sanitation workers. To worry less about one’s own vulnerability, and instead ask: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” In this case, it’s the sanitation workers. But this also means for anyone facing injustice.

Cut to 2018. I personally wrestle with the question of what I should be doing to fight back against Trump’s hateful policies, and continue the struggle against centuries of American efforts to treat human beings as commodities. I’m haunted by the feeling that what I do is not enough. That what we’re collectively doing is not enough.

I look at ICE. I often call them the ICEstapo for the way they’re terrorizing families, breaking them apart. How millions of people who are just trying to live, who are vital parts of our national life, must live in constant fear. Yet, I feel fear just picking up the phone and calling ICE to protest. When ICE detained immigrant rights leader Ravi Ragbir last week, I was aghast and livid, but I froze when it came to making calls demanding his release. This is still law enforcement. Yet, they’re committing human rights abuses.

But I have a family. I have a job. I don’t want to jeopardize everything by being too out front and easily sniped. Yet I imagine that audience in Memphis. How much more vulnerable were men and women there? Maybe not more so, but I know they were. Same with every protester in the Movement. Every day I have to ask, how am I, how are we, living up to their examples?

In his Memphis remarks, Dr. King said: “Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness”. This is my goal for 2018. Whatever we did in 2017, we need to do more of it. We need to get in the way of evil. Don’t be the person at the dinner table saying “when will they get it?” or “when will they do something”? We are the people. We must do something. Change is up to us.