President Trump’s remarks about “Shithole” nations and his desire for more immigration from (white) Northern Europe are a perfect contrast to our January 15 national day of recognition for Dr. Martin Luther King Junior – born January 15, 1929.  Except for an assassin’s bullet, he might have celebrated his 89th birthday today.  Instead he was killed before reaching the age of forty.

Click below to hear singer-songwriter Patty Griffin’s reflection on Dr King’s final speech and what his final prayer might have been before he died

Dr. King is rightly remembered as a principal leader of the civil rights movement that brought legal equality for Americans of African descent, at least on paper.  The struggle to fully achieve the promise of equality under the law continues to this day.

Today, I think it is important to remember that in his final years, Dr King had expanded his mission and ministry to encompass two additional concerns: He supported and expanded the peace movement that sought to bring American troops home from our military incursions into the affairs of other nations, principally Vietnam.  The second new subject was economic justice.  He saw, even in the 1960s, the concentration of extreme wealth among a few privileged Americans while laborers were unable to support families.  On the day that he was killed, he was in Memphis to support the demands of sanitation workers for improved wages and working conditions.

Dr King was not abandoning his civil rights mission.  He was expanding it.  The war affected everyone, regardless of race, through unnecessary killing and through the waste of economic resources that could have been used to improve American lives.  Economic inequality and injustice to working Americans affected minorities disproportionately but it was abundantly clear that a permanent, generation-spanning economic underclass existed in every race.  Insulting labels from that era such as “poor white trash” and “nigger” have not lost or changed their meaning in the half century since Dr King’s death.  They still refer to people who have had few opportunities for economic and educational advancement.  They are the victims of an economy and a nation that has no need for their limited skills and little motivation help them find opportunities.  How different, really, are the problems of the white Appalachian coal miner, the rural southern black, and the small town and urban workers of all races who lost jobs to automation?

Dr King saw clearly that we can all succeed together by creating opportunities for personal and economic growth through education and social safety net programs.  How ironic is it that Norway (the nation from which President Trump would like to have more immigration) has done what Dr King suggested?  Proponents of creating those programs here in the US are often derisively  called “socialists”.   It is precisely because of those socialist programs that very few people want to leave Norway.  People like it there.  Not only do they share their wealth, they have more to share.  In Norway, the average economic output per person is $70, 392 compared to $57,436 for Americans.  What a surprise!  A nation that strives to provide opportunities for everyone is more productive than one which ignores the needs of its poorest citizens.

Americans have responded to our problems by forming a circular firing squad – shooting (sometimes literally) at each other rather than lifting each other up, as Dr King would have taught.  Now we have elected a President and a Republican congressional majority who have cut taxes on corporations at a time when corporate profits are at record highs; cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans at a time when they already own a greater share of our national wealth than at any time on record; and will borrow money that we all have to repay in order to fund their gifts to the wealthy.  They also plan to drastically increase military spending for the longest and arguably least justified wars in American history.

Unfortunately, I must agree with President Trump that there is indeed a “shithole”.  He and the Republican congress are pushing us into it.  We’ll have to climb out using the remaining resources that they haven’t wasted.  We can do that if we will quit blaming the victims of poverty for their condition and begin focusing our efforts on creating opportunity for every American to achieve her or his full potential.  Success in that endeavor will be the measure of a great nation.