Today begins the three-day weekend that culminates in a national holiday to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Today too the awful crisis in Gaza continues. Some links relevant to both:
- The latest post on the blog of novelist Tayari Jones, who just returned from leading a women writers' workshop in Uganda, recounts her experience delivering a lecture there to a packed auditorium on "The Legacy of the Legacy of Martin Luther King" and especially the fascinating Q&A that followed. Comments were provocative and wide-ranging and included her being "called on the carpet for the imperialist foreign policy of the U.S." Her conclusion: "At the end, it was just so clear to me how much more informed people in other countries are. I cannot imagine an American audience with such a broad understanding of the history of another country."
- Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi maintains a great, up-to-the-minute blog called Poetic Injustice, which I've added to my links list.
- Another worthwhile blog I've just learned of is poet Philip Metres'. It's called Behind the Lines: Poetry, War & Peacemaking, with the subhead: "Further thoughts on the cultural labor of poetry and art. Not 'is it good,' but 'what has it accomplished?'" This blog has featured a lot of interesting news and links during the Gaza crisis.
- In cities around the country, opponents of the genocidal, U.S.-funded-and-armed Israeli war in Gaza will mark Martin Luther King day in what we believe to be the spirit of Dr.King's legacy, by marching in protest. A good number of those marchers will be, like me, Jews. There has been an amazing outpouring of support for, and over a thousand people have signed on to, the statement by Jews in Solidarity with Palestine. Among those who have signed are a holocaust survivor, a 1933 refugee from Germany, and even a resident of a kibbutz.
