jrc final

Arsenio  Jordan

     During this semester I was able to find many connections between Martin Luther King and his strive for nonviolence from the text A testament Of Hope Edited By James M Washington and the rest of my classes during the cluster.  These connections that I have made involve not only the text but my English 101 class, law and human rights as well as intro to language. The idea that I will discuss in relation to the text A testament Of Hope will focus on King’s Nonviolent theory  as well as Christianity being a part of the blueprints to the creating  a successful Nonviolent movement.  I will also talk about how language was used during King’s nonviolent movements to deny the rights of many African Americans.  While discussing these three ideas I will explain how they connect to the idea of human rights which is the basically what these three classes have been solely based on.

    When King first began his teachings of nonviolence to the black community of Montgomery, Alabama his plan was to educate them on the many ways they could reduce segregation, race driven violence as well as discrimination without using violence.  African Americans have been victims of discrimination for many years.  They were denied their rights as a human way back in the 1800’s during slavery when they were severely whipped and beaten by their masters.   Also during the 1900’s when White Supremacy Violence began to form and African Americans were actually free but still victims of brutality and even death.  The things that blacks had to go through during King’s nonviolent movements were definitely violent when they were beaten down by state troopers during the Selma march.  Many African Americas were even bit by dogs that were sicked on them by racist white police officers. These violent tactics used by the white community connects to my Law and Human rights class because we discussed the topic of dehumanization.  To dehumanize someone is to take away their rights as a person and to view them as nothing more than an animal.  This is how the whites chose to looks at blacks and they stripped them of their human rights when they inflicted violence upon them and treated them unfairly due to the color of their skin.  Another idea that connects to my law and human rights class was Religion. Certain aspects of Christianity were used in Kings nonviolent theory.  Christianity was used within his nonviolent theory to educate the people on how to unconditionally love someone.  God loves us unconditionally even if we do and say things he does not like so King wanted to instill this in the blacks to ensure that they will not retaliate using violence and that they would love their enemy even if they hurt them physically or verbally. During our Law and Human rights class I learned that the government cannot stop anybody from practicing their religion.  A person can pray during any time of the day and anywhere they choose to and the U.S. government has no right to take that away.  The blacks and whites that followed King and nonviolence were victims of terrible brutality because they practiced nonviolence tactics during Kings Movements.  Nonviolence was considered to be a religion to King himself and he chose to use it as a religion.

     Lastly I will like to talk about how language was used during Kings nonviolent movement to deny the rights of many African Americans.  The government made it hard for blacks to survive.  They deprived them of voting rights at one point so they could not have a voice or a say in the issues of society.  It was like blacks didn’t even exist when it came to voting. The Selma march was based on trying to get the government to let blacks voice their opinions and actually be a part of voting where their voice will be heard.  During my intro to language class I learned that there were actual wars over languages.  The government in other countries would actually take away the language of a certain culture and the people of that culture would not be able to speak it. They would naturally be forced to learn a more popular language that the government chose for them to read, speak and write.  That means nothing for them would be translated for them to understand.   If these people could not use their language then how could they possibly participate in social activities such as voting?.  These adaptions that people were forced to make often ended in violent bloody wars.

     All three of these classes shared a different view and take on what human rights are.  They all talked about how human rights were taken away from people. Each class during the cluster came with many stories in history that illustrated how human rights have become something worth fighting for but the hardest thing for everyone to agree on.  This is truly ironic because everyone has human rights no matter what color they are or what role they place in life.  Yet there are many people like the government who are somewhat considered as higher power who believe that freedom of rights determine where you stand in society.