Vanderbilt traditionally avoids celebrating national holidays and Martin Luther King Jr. Day is no different. Sure, there will be various events including a presentation by Charles McDew, founder of Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but students will still be in class.
Lethargy aside, it is hard not to connect MLK Day and the following inauguration. Unsurprisingly, The New York Times has been preparing for this eventuality since August. In an article titled “Is Obama the end of black politics?” Matt Bai discusses the evolution of African-American politics since the end of the civil rights movement. In the story, Cornell Belcher, a pollster, claimed, “The people I work with are the new black politics. We don’t carry around that history. We see the world through post-civil-rights eyes. I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but that’s just the way it is.”
That is the crux of the problem: Has everything changed over the course of the past 50 years? Bai wrote, “For a lot of younger African-Americans, the resistance of the civil rights generation to Obama’s candidacy signified the failure of their parents to come to terms, at the dusk of their lives, with the success of their own struggle,” implying there is a distinct (not subtle) generational conflict. In one sense, this change reflects major progress in the U.S. political machine, but is it possible to still be successful if you are alienated by the fruits of your own labor?
In other words, to some, Obama’s victory is bittersweet. It stands as a milestone as any first would, but uncomfortable racial tension is still present. His presidency marks the decline of the traditional segregated political machine — a change that could possibly leave the old guard stranded.
Obama’s campaign was based strongly on the intangible concept of change. He was lauded for his optimism. Like justice, however, change is blind. When the tides turn, change does not favor one over another. In these uncertain times — times of political and social upheaval — many people stand to be left behind by change. In Darwinian fashion, those who refuse to adapt will be ignominiously removed from the new political landscape.
The old guard, who according to Bai “saw their job, principally, as confronting an inherently racist white establishment,” something Artur Davis, as well as other modern black politicians, firmly rejects. The time when these men’s role was nothing more than a spokesmen for their community is over; their constituents now expect more, they clamor for inspiration.
To put it simply, this MLK Day will be different, if for no other reason than the nature of the upcoming inauguration. This holiday, whose purpose is to reflect on the past is about to be overrun by the future. This year, MLK Day should be a time to reminisce about both the living and the dead; about triumphs and failures; most importantly, about whom we as a nation are.
