#3-008: Martin Luther King and Justice without Judgment

Aminata reflects on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., emphasizing 'justice without judgment,' a concept introduced to her by Gary Zukav. Sharing a personal experience from 2016-2017 while canvassing for a Democratic candidate in a Republican town, Aminata highlights the dangers of a judgmental attitude. The script explores the importance of love as the foundation for justice, urging a shift from labels and blame to understanding and connection. Aminata advocates for actions rooted in love, aiming to redeem the soul of America, a principle she attributes to Dr. King's vision.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Hey gorgeous, I'm Aminata here and I want to talk to you today about the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King jr. Here we are in the window of his birth which was of course on January 15th and the national holiday which is January 20th. And here in the Mother Tree community, we are taking this time to focus on justice without judgment.

Now, this is a phrase that was first introduced to me by Gary Zukav. But of course he's not the first person to come up with it or to even think about how can we have justice without exercising or using judgment in a way, That dehumanizes ourselves and the parties to whom we're [00:01:00] applying our judgment to.

So let's jump into it. So the first thing I want to say is when I was a young soldier for the revolution, which is a name of a June Jordan essay, I was very judgmental. In the 80s, when I was an activist, you know, I had people in all kinds of categories and I found almost all of them wanting in some kind of way, unless they thought like me, and in fact, I found myself inadequate.

I mean, it was just constant judgment of how good people were. Were they good enough? Was I good enough? And the problem with a judgmental attitude when you're trying to make social change , in the vein and in the vision of Dr.

King. And to me, that takes a fundamental starting point of love. The starting point is love [00:02:00] and from love comes justice. , but let me tell you what the difference is. When you're rooted in love, you're coming from the place of oneness.

And it is from that deep appreciation, that deep interconnection that you want to see justice enacted amongst people in our relationships with each other.

Win. When we start from justice, what we're trying to do is somehow get fairness or to achieve some balance. But if that doesn't start from love, but it starts from maybe a theoretical sense or conceptual sense of what equality is or something like that, it's very easy for it to become punishment, for it to somehow [00:03:00] lose its goal, which is a world, a community that works for all of us.

And that doesn't leave anybody out. I want to give an example. from my personal life. So around 2016, 2017, I started working for a beautiful person in my predominantly Republican town who is running for Congress, and she was running as a Democrat. But to win in our county, you have to be able to connect with and have a vision that is going to touch people across party lines.

And so my husband and I, Michael, My fearless partner who goes with me to a lot of things. Thank you, Michael. We [00:04:00] had a canvassing date where we went to you know, talk to people, knock on doors and talk to people about our candidate, whose name was Jess King, by the way. And we knocked on a lot of doors together.

And one day we were given the packet to go talk to some people in a rich gated community. And, you know, we debated on whether or not we should go because what was the point, was anybody really going to listen to this Jess King's message over there? And I said, yes, we have to go. We have to go. So we go to this community.

We're locking on a lot of doors, but getting nobody, no answers, no human beings are coming out to talk to us. And then we see this woman in a driveway and she calls out to us. So I say, Michael, let's go across the street. She wants to talk to us. So we go across the street to talk to this woman who it turns out has called us over to berate us for canvassing, to charge us with [00:05:00] soliciting and being illegal and ultimately decides to call the police on us.

This is a white woman. I felt so shocked and hurt and humiliated that this woman thought she had the right to call the police on me for my constitutional, you know, activity. And I also felt vulnerable because we know that. You know, historically when white women have called police on black people, bad things can happen.

So ultimately she took our picture. We took her picture. I made sure that we were smiling in the picture she took of us. And you know, the picture we took of her, cause we were like, we're, I was like, I am not going to be intimidated by you. So we took a picture of her back. Anyway, the bottom line is that we left.

I had a lot of terrible feelings inside of my body, fear, anger, frustration. I questioned myself, should I have left, you [00:06:00] know, kind of like what would Dr. King have done when he stood his ground and gotten arrested? You know, what about the Freedom Riders? You know, those kinds of questions were going on inside of me, but we left, we got home and soon after the police arrived, she had sent the police literally to our homes to find us.

I was so shocked and appalled that I went on that evil place known as Facebook and I vented and I You know, I shared what might have been her name. I wasn't quite sure, but based on, you know, having my little canvas sheet, I figured out who she was and, and I called it canvassing while black, well, that post took off, it got picked up by so many.

Individuals, some of whom I knew and who were really being supportive of me, but it also got picked up by people who were just spewing hate, who were just so [00:07:00] angry and who wanted destruction to happen to this person. And I got so scared. I was like, Oh my God, please, please do not let anything happen to this woman because of what I said.

Please do not let my judgment translate into violence. Ultimately, that did not happen. It blew over. The media found somebody else to talk about. But in that moment, I got a taste of what judgment is. So judgment is when you lock somebody into a label, when you lock them into blame for an action that they took and don't allow them to grow.

Don't allow them to be a multifaceted human being. Don't allow them to make a mistake. Don't allow them to be an a hole. Which they may be, but that's not all [00:08:00] they are. And if you are human, you too have been an a hole. But that's not all you are. You too have been selfish. You too have been coming from a supremacist perspective.

Because you're human! Because you have grown up in a separation consciousness. So, when we take a judgmental Attitude towards our opponents, when we lock them in and make them enemies, then we are working against what we say is our ultimate goal and our ultimate goal. And I think for Dr. King was not desegregation was not integration.

The ultimate goal was to redeem the soul of America and all of the people who live within. This country, the ultimate goal was not desegregation or affirmative [00:09:00] action, racial justice. The ultimate goal was to redeem the soul of America. And if we take any action, which harms our souls or harms or seeks to

 To see. People who disagree with us as something other than souls who have a right to exist and a beauty to offer the world. If we do anything

takes that away from them, then we are disserving ourselves. And that I think is the legacy. Of Dr. King is justice without judgment. It's rooting in love and from love oneness, wholeness, seeking, cultivating justice, [00:10:00] it is not about being right. It is not about being good enough. It is not about somehow earning the love of God or of other human beings.

It is about allowing for the fullest expression. Of our souls. And it is about connecting, remembering our connection with all humans, with our ancestral lineage, with the trees and the birds and the snowflakes that are falling down right now, outside my window, that is what we're about. And so our actions flow from that.

I hope this has been helpful to you. I hope these thoughts inspire you or. You know, cause a little spark over there. If you want to let me [00:11:00] know how you feel about it, please do go to my website, dr. Amanda Kemp. com get on my newsletter. You'll find my email there and join the mother tree community. We are a community of people rooted in love, standing for justice, rooted in love, standing for justice, paying attention to our ancestors, paying attention to what Mother Earth is telling us, how she teaches us.

So if any of that sounds good to you, I want you in this community with us. All right. Happy birthday, Martin Luther King Jr. Happy birthday to all those who worked in the civil rights movement. We appreciate you. We appreciate your love. Ashe Aho Ami. See you next time.