A Simple Act of Race-blind Compassion Worthy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every January in association with Martin Luther King Day, Americans repeatedly hear King's admonition that we should judge each other by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin.  Unfortunately, the rest of the year, media is awash with stories of bias, partisanship, and outright racial animus.  Most troubling is that our so-called leaders, white and black, often inflame rather than promote inter-racial cooperation and civility in order to make political points or to receive ego-enhancing attention.

The abysmal failure of American racial leadership is such to make a seemingly small act of inter-racial compassion noteworthy.  The act, performed by Malik Stewart,120 pound black high school wrestler, occurred in early March, 2014 during a Class 3-A State High School Wrestling Championship.  In their final match, white Mitchell McKee pinned Malik to win the championship.  After the referee raised Mitchell's hand to indicate his win, Malik did not scowl or stomp.  He quietly walked over to Mitchell's father who was seated in the audience, embraced the man, and said, "You are loved."   The audience erupted in applause.  You see, Malik and they knew that Mitchell's father has terminal cancer and a remaining life expectancy of two months.

The article that recounted the incident suggested that Malik's own father had died from a heart attack when the boy was only 7 years-old.  In short, even after suffering what likely was a most disappointing loss, Malik chose to identify with Mitchell rather than to resent him.  Malik instinctively felt a connection that had nothing to do with race.  He saw Mitchell as like himself, not as different.

The most remarkable aspect of this story is not what Malik did; it is the fact that in order to do it he needed to resist all the divisive racial propaganda that has barraged him since his birth.  Among other things, Malik had to refrain from employing the readily accessible excuse that his white opponent won the wrestling match due to racial prejudice against blacks.  He had to forget that race mongers in America continually pressure him to call only black men, and not white men, "brothers."  He had to ignore the possibility that embracing whites could cause him to be called an "Uncle Tom." 

        

The story of black Malik Stewart and white Mitchell McKee is both an inspiring and saddening commentary about race in contemporary America.  It is inspiring in Malik's humanity and saddening in that inter-racial humanity is worth a blog post. 

I suggest that in January for Martin Luther King Day we boycott America's pontificating, hypocritical racial leaders.  Instead, let's have a succession of eveyday people, like Malik Stewart, flood the media, telling mundane, everyday stories that illustrate how we can interact with each other based on the content of character rather than on racial identity.