Monday, August 29, 2016

RIP, Joe Hicks

I just read that Joe Hicks has died.  It's been a long time since I've written about him, but not so long that I didn't immediately recognize his name and understand our society's loss in his passing.

I didn't agree with "young Joe"; rather I agreed more with "older Joe".  The 2nd link above shows how Joe and I both feel about Dr. King's dream of a colorblind society.  From the LA Weekly (quoted in that link):
That inner search took Hicks to a serious re-reading of the works of Dr. King. This time, he was "bowled over" by the "race-transcendent message" he saw in the writings of the slain civil rights leader. It was, he says, "another one of those ah-ha moments." He found a King who wasn't arguing for a society cleaved into racial categories, divided by competing ethnic identities, but rather a vision of a colorblind democracy. He found himself asking how activists had come from fighting for equal opportunity and rights for all to divisive identity politics.
May your message continue to inspire others as it did me.

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