Previous Story
Afraid of MLK Day?
|
Posted on Feb 03 2005
I personally have wonderful memories of the Martin Luther King Holiday from when I lived on the U.S. mainland.
My memories feature inspiring and celebratory parades that featured Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, and other peoples; organized acts of service such as neighborhood cleanups carried out across racial barriers by mixed and individual racial groups; public forums attended by diverse people on how to further improve race relations and equal rights for all; and, on one particular year a powerful speech made in a Jewish Community Center by the widow of the late Dr. King.
Why doesn’t the CNMI government wish to adopt the holiday? Why have they not done so, to date? Because the CNMI government is quietly and inwardly terrified of the holiday and what it represents.
They fear that if the message of Dr. King were to be made widely known here—for example, “discrimination anywhere is discrimination everywhere”—they could no longer perpetuate the codified semi-apartheid system they have set into place. One multi-cultural parade here like the ones I experienced in the U.S. mainland would be all it would take to reveal the utter hypocrisy inherent in CNMI policies regarding labor and immigration.
Here in the CNMI, Dr. King’s message is viewed by the local government as a direct threat to their power.
“My God! What if someone rises up and does something here like what Dr. King did?”
What if someone did?
C.M. Jones
Capitol Hill, Saipan
