The first three days of the spring semester are followed by the first three-day weekend of the semester.
While many students look forward to the long weekend for relaxation purposes, Martin Luther King Jr. Day shouldn”t just be viewed as a convenient day off. People should think about what MLK stood for and how it relates to present society.
Pretty much everyone has heard the saying, “history repeats itself,” and we are witnessing a repeat of the “60s with second wave civil rights.
The issue of equality based on race has never truly disappeared. The civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. were monumental in taking the first steps toward equality. But the issue is far from resolved.
After Barack Obama took office, several people claimed that America had become a “post-racial” society: anyone can become what they want regardless of their skin tone or their ethnic background.
But the very fact that we need to have the discussion of becoming a post-racial society shows that issues to do with race are not behind us.
One of the first cases that brought some light to the issue of inequality that exists today was the 2013 incident with Trayvon Martin. Out of that, the movement #BlackLivesMatter formed and is now a full-fledged civil rights organization.
In the last three years, incidents of police brutality have entered public discussion, which has caused great concern within the public sphere. Discussions have formed about how police are being trained and how the criminal justice system itself is functioning.
With the stand-in protests that occurred at the University of Missouri and the support that colleges and universities, including the University of Idaho, had for students of color at the school, it is obvious that the issue of civil rights is far from over.
In northern Idaho, these discussions are hard to have. Our state, in general, lacks more ethnic diversity than most. UI”s campus is represented by about 90 percent white or Caucasian people, so understanding the issue of civil rights can be difficult. To disregard it entirely because of our location is not an option, however.
If the UI community can embrace diversity and work together against racism, perhaps the same mindset and activism could be brought into the new locations of UI graduates.
The issue of civil rights isn”t over just because we live in 2016. If anything, the impacts of social media and the changing tolerance in younger generations greatly affect the civil rights movement in our modern society.
So, on MLK Day, reflect on the culture we live in and how the community can work together to make UI and the surrounding world a more accepting place.
– CW