A Justice Site
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Practice Module on Ending Complicity
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Created August 15 2002
Latest Update: August 15, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Recognizing Complicity and Ending It
Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, August 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.A First Candle for Martin Luther King's Birthday an article by Vilma on the Culture of Peace News Network. Backup
This story on the Culture of Peace News Network describes a local community project in which citizens (whites) who had previously not celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday recognized the importance of doing so, and organized a celebration at the local high school.
Often white communities see little reason for celebrating the holidays of other ethnic groups. Such an attitude rests on assumption that the peoples and events don't have anything to do with me." In the case of Martin Luther King, slavery and anti-black racism affect all of us. To deny that effect is to be blinded to our own privilege, and, yes, all whites in this country enjoy privilege because of slavery, and enjoy privileges that accrue to them simply for being white. One of the simplest of such privileges, and one we often forget is the privilege of not standing out visibly in a white crowd. (Link Images of Color.) With its first celebration for Martin Luther King, the little town of Glastonbury, Connecticut, recognized the minimal complicity of enjoying privilege, and rejected that complicity through the celebration.
Peace sometimes comes in small steps, hesitant steps, taken by each of us, one at a time.
