Freddy Haynes on what we get wrong about MLK day

Just days before Martin Luther King Day, Reverend Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III talks with George about the misconceptions surrounding Dr. King’s legacy, and the important difference between equity and equality.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God: Conversations that Matter about Faith and Public Life. I'm your host, George Mason. And I am delighted to welcome to the program my colleague and my friend and my brother, the Reverend Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes, the third. Freddy, good to have you with me.

Frederick Haynes III:
Man. George, I am honored and it's always a pleasure, not only to engage in fellowship with you, but also to just benefit and be blessed by your amazing ministry. I was telling someone the other day that there have been many times I've been discouraged trying to do the work we do, and then I think about George Mason and I get encouraged. And so I want to thank you for that.

George Mason:
Well, thank you. It's been one of the great privileges of our years, I think, together in Dallas that we've come to know one another and to realize that we don't have to work at this alone. We can find ways together and we can talk more about that later.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yes.

George Mason:
I actually think that this is a good time for our conversation because we're coming up on Martin Luther King weekend, celebrating his birth, of course, on Monday, the 17th of January. And you and I have had an ongoing conversation that has taken place around this weekend, because we've sort of shared an idea about how poorly America has come to observe this holiday. Say some more about your take on that.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm convinced if Dr. King were to come back in flesh and observe the celebrations, he would wonder, okay, well, who are they talking about because this does not reflect me. I think that he's been victimized by identity theft. Vincent Harding, who was partnering with King in his work and wrote the great speech of April 4th, 1967, about his declaration against the war in Vietnam, wrote a book and talked about King as the inconvenient hero. He does a riff on a poem that was written by another author whose name escapes me right now. But Harding says that King, we have made him convenient. He's a hero who we can build a statue to. He's a hero who suffers from identity theft, as it were. And so he is our convenient hero and the way we observe the holiday with the over-emphasis on I have a dream.

Frederick Haynes III:
And of course, we see those on the right who love to rush to justify their anti-affirmative action policies by saying, well, God, Dr. King wanted us to judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. And so King has been so manipulated. His legacy has been so distorted that it shows up on the holiday. I don't even want to offend people, but one of the things we love to say, it's not a day off, it's a day on. And of course, what do we do? We engage in acts of charitable service and that's nice. That's nice. But if we're honest, King was not engaging in acts of charitable service. He was changing systems that necessitated our acts of charitable service. And so even when we say it's a day on and not a day off and we feed the hungry, all of that is nice, but King, again, if he were to come back, he would say, I was trying to make sure people were not hungry.

Frederick Haynes III:
And so I think it's just a sad reflection that in many instances ... I saw this today that made me think of our conversation, early this morning on CBS Morning News, Plessy, who was in the lawsuit, Plessy versus Ferguson, that eventuated in the legalizing of what segregation, second class citizenship, discrimination, racism. Howard Plessy was pardoned by the governor of Louisiana today. And there was a big symbolic, emotional kumbaya moment because Howard Plessy has been pardon. He is no longer a criminal. Now, he died in 1925. So I don't know what that does for him, but it's symbolic of what America loves to do. America loves to engage in kumbaya symbolism. And I kept thinking about, okay, what happened to Plessy on that train when he was taken off, guilty simply of being a black man sitting in what was deemed a white train car. He paid his fine and he was labeled a criminal until was death in 1925. And of course, until what happened with the governor of Louisiana recently, but what is so unfortunate is that Plessy versus Ferguson unleashed so much damage when it came to public policy in this country.

Frederick Haynes III:
So Plessy versus Ferguson made segregation and second class education okay. It unleashed public policy that created so much in terms of second class citizenship in this country. So when you talk about airtight cages of poverty that King denounced, that was created by Plessy versus Ferguson. And so for me, it's not enough to simply say he's no longer a criminal. What are you going to do to undo all that Plessy versus Ferguson unleashed in this country? That's what King would be about.

George Mason:
Yeah. So I think another thing that happens, of course, on King's birthday is there is every year there's this question about, but haven't things improved and haven't we made progress.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right.

George Mason:
And so let's celebrate this progress. But we are going to have this conversation on Saturday, the 15th. We'll talk more about that in a moment. And it grows out of King's book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? And early in that book, he says something that I think is really important. He says that in the language of his day, the Negro, black people have taken seriously, this concept of equality and the promise of it.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right.

George Mason:
But the psychology of the white community has not been prepared for true equality, and in fact, therefore they want to celebrate improvement because improvement does not yet reach the place of equality.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right.

George Mason:
And so, where instead the demand for cashing the check of the promissory note of true equality is made by the black community day in and day out, year in and year out, the white community tends to want to step back and say, but haven't we made progress. And so it seems to me that we would rather soothe our conscience rather than raise our consciousness about what the goal really ought to be.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's on point. And again, it's a reflection of the fact that he suffers from this identity theft and here's the interesting thing. And I don't negate progress. I think that there evidences that things are not as bad as they were in 65. And yet I'm in conversation a few weeks ago with Bishop William Barber and he made the statement, he said, do you know, given the voter suppression bills that have passed and become law in Texas and North Carolina, Georgia, around the country said that, do you know that we have less protection of voting rights today than we did when LBJ signed the voting rights bill? And so it hit me that, okay, so we get excited about, and I love how you phrased it, improvement because we're not serious about equality.

George Mason:
Exactly.

Frederick Haynes III:
Which is why equity becomes a bad word.

Frederick Haynes III:
And so, unfortunately, again, it's a sad reflection. It's an indicator that this country, which was, as far as I'm concerned, born in a hostile takeover, shaped by white male supremacy, has never really been serious about a democracy that's for all the people by all the people. It's almost as if there's been an allergic reaction to that. And you refer to our piece that's coming up on Saturday, the 15th, which is ironically the actual birthday of Dr. King. And so our remix of his last book 55 ago, ironically, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, is where do we go from here, community or oligarchy? And really oligarchy, which is what government for the few, by the few-

George Mason:
That's right.

Frederick Haynes III:
Old at the top. That has been the story of America in too many instances. When you look at the beginnings of this country, I mean, unfortunately it was really for the upper crust white males by the upper crust white males. It did not even include white women let alone white peasants who were struggling, not to mention the enslaved and those black up north. It just didn't. And so it was born like that and America has not been serious about really correcting that, because again, I think what you said is it. As long as we keep having the look of improvement, we'll be okay.

George Mason:
All right. So let's talk about this language you brought up, and that is equity and equality, because I think people get confused about the terminology. So equality is something that is constitutionally insured, that we are all created equal, and we therefore have equal rights under the Constitution. And as you say, even though that those words are there, it took a long time for us to actually admit that that meant everybody, that really everybody was actually equal. That's actually been true, not just in America, but within our religious traditions as well as we've wrestled with how to interpret that. And part of the whole notion of the Christian faith, the original creed is that there is no longer any Jew or Gentile slave or free male or female. All are one, equal in Christ Jesus. So this is part of our faith tradition.

George Mason:
But so we go from that basic equality, and then people jump over to the question of, well, does that mean equal outcomes, equality means everybody is the same. And then there's that move all the way to, so what you really want is a socialist system that undermines our free enterprise and human aspiration to work hard and succeed and all of that. But we skipped this equity moment that should be in between.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right.

George Mason:
And I don't think equality of outcome is the point of all of this as much as the structural change of equity. Now, let's talk about what equity is, Fred. Right.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right, right. And I really appreciate that because one of the things for me is equity is reflected and [inaudible 00:12:58] this is a gospel program. It's reflected, I think, in what Zacchaeus did when he basically, after his transformational encounter with the living Christ. He said, you know what, I done some wrong and so I need to engage in reparative efforts because I've done people wrong. And so whoever I've done wrong, I'm going to not only pay them back, which will bring them to a point of equality, but I'm going to repair damage that I've done. And I think that's what we're talking about when we're honest about equity. It's really recognizing. Again, I think that the whole concept around Howard Plessy, as we alluded to earlier, now, he is no longer a criminal. Even though he's dead, he's been pardoned, but equity says, well, let's take an honest look at what has taken place as a result of Plessy versus Ferguson.

Frederick Haynes III:
There's a beautiful thing that has taken place with the descendants of both Plessy and Ferguson. And they now have a foundation called Plessy and Ferguson, which I think is a good thing.

George Mason:
Yeah.

Frederick Haynes III:
As opposed to Plessy versus Ferguson. Metaphorically speaking, Plessy and Ferguson says we're going to dig and find out just how much damage has been done as a result of that earlier piece. And so when we do that, we set the stage for equity. We set stage, but structurally rewiring a system that has often been disadvantaging those who are black, brown, impoverished, Native Americans. You basically commit to redoing the structure. And when you redo the structure, you also repair damage that was done because of the structural inequity and inequality that was a part of the birth of this country and the ongoing policies.

George Mason:
And I think people, if you would need a little visual analogy for this, there are several that we could come up with, but one of them would be, if you're running a hundred yard dash, and some people are starting on the starting line and other people are starting at the 40-yard mark-

Frederick Haynes III:
Exactly.

George Mason:
This is not equity.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right. I love it.

George Mason:
You run the race and the person that starts on the 40 wins, and you say, well, they were faster. Well, you started at different places. So, all we're trying to do is say with equity, let's get to a place where it actually is opportunistic for everyone in a reasonable way to succeed.

Frederick Haynes III:
Thank you.

George Mason:
It may not be precise, but structurally, we're getting to that question. And that involves education and it involves economic opportunity. And it involves job opportunity. It involves all sorts of things that we know structurally in our society have been deliberately designed to advantage some people and disadvantage others.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yeah, no question. Ironically, Commissioner Price sent this to me last week and it was interesting. He said that some seven to $10 billion in contracts are negotiated, by what DFW Airport, Parkland Hospital, DISD, NTTA, DCCD, all again, taxpayer money. And even though black and brown people make up 62% of the population in the county, whites get 95% of the contracts. So in a race, because, God, I love your analogy, in a race, you're not even starting necessarily at the 40, you're starting 60 yards down the road and even if the gun goes off, we all leave the starting block at the same time, there's just no way you can blame me for finishing 60 yards behind, or-

George Mason:
Even if you're faster.

Frederick Haynes III:
60 yards behind in the race.

George Mason:
Even if you are faster and fitter and more capable, you have started so far behind. And this is also part of the problem generally in our society where you talked about Plessy versus Ferguson and about the legacy of Jim Crow and segregation. And that is that structurally, it means that when we look at outcomes today and we recognize that the average net worth of a black American family is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 13% of that of white Americans. Well, that means that one group has generational wealth to succeed and the other does not. And that is an enormous outcome, but it's not an outcome that is based upon initiative or upon hard work. It's an outcome that's based upon this inequity that has been structurally created that we've been talking about that has to be addressed if things are going to change.

George Mason:
So let me ask you this then. This gets into, again, part of King's book is wrestling with the language of power and the black power movement that was very much oriented toward with Stokely Carmichael and others, this idea that we have to move more into economic matters, that King is almost always lauded for his human rights and civil rights, racial justice sort of emphasis, which was, of course, a large part of who he was and what he did it, but it's probably not what actually got him killed. When he started talking about money and economic justice and all of that, that's when the vitriol really came to the fore. That's when people said he was getting out of his lane, that's when there was a lot of a backlash as a result of that. And the book talks about racism and white backlash, and we find ourselves not just back in the sixties with that, but we're there again. There's a lot of white backlash to this notion that there should be economic justice that is racially oriented as well.

Frederick Haynes III:
Right. Right. And I think that, again, as long as we continue to engage in identity theft of King and making him convenient, we won't deal with those last three years. There's a powerful scene in the movie, Selma, when King and Abernathy are in jail and King is real concerned. He basically remixes what Baldwin had said, his fear that he had integrated, black people went to a burning building or a burning house. He said, and I think that's something for us to be concerned about as we look at the big lie that resulted in January 6th and then showed up and manifest itself in policies of voter suppression. But the other thing he said while in jail, he said, what is it to integrate a lunch counter, if you can't read the menu, speaking of education, and if you don't have enough money to buy a hamburger, speaking of economics.

Frederick Haynes III:
And that propelled him, ironically, into his real focus in those last three years on economic justice. Immediately after the signing of the voting rights bill of 1965, there's the explosion in LA, in Watts. He goes out to LA and that's when he is confronted by those who are impoverished, who feel like the community does not belong to us, and so why are you upset with us for saying, burn, baby burn? And then he goes to Chicago and lives in impoverished apartments and begins to put the spotlight on economic segregation, as it were. And so one of the things that, again, if we're serious about King, we have to take a real good look at what he talked about. And I'm about to say something that we don't want to hear in a conversation about King. King critiqued capitalism so much so that he was calling for what he called a democratic socialism, not going full-heartedly with socialism, but understanding that there has to be a guaranteed income in America, in a nation as wealthy as we are, there has to be. So when you talk about what Bishop Barber and the Poor People's Campaign, $15 an hour. King was even more radical than that. He was calling for a living wage. And let's be honest, very few people can live off of $15 an hour [crosstalk 00:22:42]

George Mason:
And yet it's only what $7 and 25 cents, technically, right.

Frederick Haynes III:
Exactly.

George Mason:
It's crazy. Okay. And you and I have been in league with one another about this payday lending type thing. So you talk about capitalism.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yeah.

George Mason:
Right. So one of the things that these payday lenders do is they are in exploitive capitalism.

Frederick Haynes III:
Thank you.

George Mason:
So what they're doing is now not going into neighborhoods with the language that they want to use, which is to say that they are there to provide a service, to provide resources for people who cannot go to a bank. And therefore they're there to provide capital that other people would not provide. But instead, what you and I know, and we've worked on this is, is that these companies, unregulated to a large extent, are able to charge extraordinary fees beyond normal interest rates. And they have a dedicated business model to entrap people in poverty and to keep them in that way. And this is what we're talking about when we're talking about critiquing capitalism. That if we're going to be a just society, we have to have people protected from exploitation in our capitalist system.

Frederick Haynes III:
No question, because again, what liberty and justice for all, not liberty and capitalism for all, because again, capitalism that is exploitive or as we refer to the payday loan industry, predatory. It's capitalism. It's what one says, okay, that's free enterprise, but it's enterprise that exploits, it's free enterprise that compounds impoverished circumstances. And again, if you're talking about Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther King Jr. would not be on the side of payday predators. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be on the side of a capitalism that exploits people. And again, that's why one of the things that I've so enjoyed about our relationship is we have refused to settle for what kumbaya, let's preach for one another, have worship together. Oh, that's nice. That's real cool. But instead we've said, no, let's unite in a fight against economic exploitation, against educational injustice. Let's unite and use our partnership to make a difference in the fight for justice. And as far as I'm concerned, that's Kingian at its best.

George Mason:
And we're going to do this again. This is, what, the fifth year that we're going to do this next week. And it's the MLK Teach-In. And it's hosted by Friendship West Baptist Church. It'll be virtual again this year. And you and I have done this. Who's going to be with us this year?

Frederick Haynes III:
Man, this year we're going to have Brittany Packnett-Cunningham. Of course, she's an activist based out of St. Louis who was right there on the front lines during the Ferguson uprising. Her leadership was so crucial that President Obama appointed her to serve on his commission as he was taking a look at policing in this country. And so Brittany will be with us. And one who is becoming a rising star, especially recently, Jasmine Crockett, State Representative Jasmine Crockett, who, with many democratic representatives, they left the state of Texas during the special session. And even before that, the session, the regular session to ensure that the governor would not have his quorum to pass voter suppression. And she became one that many were calling upon to articulate not only the issues, but to give an alternative vision of what this country should look like when it comes to voting rights. And so between Brittany and Jasmine and you, it's going to be a powerful, informative, engaging time where we really have a Teach-In on the real Martin Luther King, Jr.

George Mason:
So this is the last question, but I think you just listed, who's going to be there and I'm in that group. And I appreciate being part of it. And it's been a joy to do so year after year with you. But in King's book, he does talk about the conversation between Stokely Carmichael and him, and the different factions of what role should white allies play in this struggle. And that's still, I think, an important question that needs to be answered in our time. And I think there are of white people who are well-meaning, who want to participate, who want to have a role, but they don't really know exactly what their right way of going about that is. Would you share some thoughts? King argued that they should be involved and this should be a model of how we go forward, but we do have a tendency in our white history to step in and to try to take over in just about everything we do. And so I think it's important to lay out some guidelines about how we work together. And we've been able to do that. What are your observations about that? How would you teach us, Freddy?

Frederick Haynes III:
Well, again, I would lift up George Mason as a motto, and I've said that behind your back, because I really mean that. And just looking at the Mason model, number one, you've done a great job of educating yourself about the black experience. One of the things that is often said in our community is that we know because we have to, we know white America, but white America doesn't always know black people, the black experience, but often arrogantly presupposes from the vantage point of whiteness. I know black people, therefore I know the black experience, therefore I have the solution to that experience. And so I think it takes a certain humility to educate oneself about the experience and learn from those who are not afraid to be truth-tellers in love. And so you have relationships that continue to blow my mind because it just reflects the fact that you have not been comfortable in the comfort zone of whiteness.

Frederick Haynes III:
And again, I'm not just saying that because you're here. I'm saying that because that's just a real deal. It takes a certain amount of humility to bust out of one's comfort zone, learn from, listen to others and learn from an experience that really is in many instances foreign because when I'm ahead, it's hard for me to know what's happening behind me. I think the second piece is, it's very important then to recognize that racism is never just being mean, simply being mean to someone, calling them the N word. But racism, and again, that is racist, there's no doubt about it, but at the same time, it's when that is structured, when it becomes a part of systems that it is most damaging. And so Eddie Glaude, Jr. talks about the culture of white supremacy in the nation. And we all know that in any organization, one writer said that culture is going to trump, I hate to use that word, but it's going to trump vision all the time.

Frederick Haynes III:
And so you can have a great vision, but if you have a culture that mitigates against that, the sad reality is that culture is going to win every time. And so we've got to, in this country, take a good look at a culture, a system, a structure. And so as white allies, white allies who often benefit and are privileged by these structures must also interrogate those structures, interrogate their privilege within the context of those structures and then use that privilege to be bold enough to say, okay, in some instances, we've got to dismantle this because there's no way we're going to have equity, let alone equality, as long as the structure remains what the structure has been. And I guess the final piece I'll say is that it's so important that whites confront whites about racism.

George Mason:
Good.

Frederick Haynes III:
It's one thing for me to do it, it's another thing for someone who is, again, a part of that culture, that upbringing. It's quite another thing for whites to do it. And so I think that when we are all doing our part, we better service as allies in dismantling a white supremacy and making a difference. And so I salute you because you do it. I know others who are engaged in doing it. And those are the models that we need to lift up because I've discovered, and the Black Lives Matter Movement has shown us this. And that is, we don't always have to be out front to be impactful. We can be out front. We can even lead from behind, but all of us have a responsibility and it really takes a certain amount of humility to say, I don't have to run it in order for it to be effective and successful.

George Mason:
Well, it's a joy to be in this with you. Struggle or not, it's God's work and it's good work.

Frederick Haynes III:
It's God's work and it's good work. I love that.

George Mason:
And that's why we call this, Good God.

Frederick Haynes III:
Yes, yes.

George Mason:
And thank you. Thank you. Frederick Haynes, the third. It's great to have you with us and to continue this good work together and we'll see you on Saturday.

Frederick Haynes III:
I can't wait Saturday the 17th at 10 o'clock. George Mason in the house.

George Mason:
Saturday, the 15th. That's right.

Frederick Haynes III:
Saturday the 15th. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. George Mason. And again, George has been doing this from the inception. So George is the one who's been doing it for five years. We bringing on everybody else now, but George has been with us from jump and [crosstalk 00:33:46] of George Mason.

George Mason:
All right. Thank you so much. And we'll see you then.

Frederick Haynes III:
Thank you.

Speaker 3:
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