(A message from Baphnedia)
When I was growing up, Martin Luther King Jr’s legacy was already diminished from who he was in life. This reduction was not only due to the passage of time or the entropy of information; it was due to those who did not want MLK or anyone like him to hold power again.
Our remembrance of MLK was subtle. Instead of learning about his greater achievements to humanity and civil rights, we were taught to remember the things about MLK that mattered the least to sideline what he stood for and how he stood up to power. Like any national hero, what we needed to memorize was the date and place of his birth, the date and place of his death because those were always questions on the test, and then it really depended upon the curriculum whether any questions about what he stood for needed to be remembered. When we were taught how to celebrate, we were given a day off of school and sometimes off of work. Today, it is plain as day to see the results of decades of propaganda and the degradation of accessible information.
Racism is not equal in its expression or intensity from person to person. I learned mine from my father, who held utmost respect for Black Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders but that respect waned when it came to Latinx and he actively derided Native Americans. For everything wrong with my father, he was an auditor for the C-suite of Georgia Pacific, a pulp and paper production company, at the time the Civil Rights Act went into effect, and his life could have ended for ensuring that the company complied to the new law, because some white workers were very mad that black workers could have authority over them.
For me, I grew up in a white family in a white neighborhood and then we moved to rural Hawaii where I lived in a Hawaiian neighborhood and went to a Hawaiian school. The first black person who was a part of my life I was my 4th grade teacher, Mr. Washington, of Washington Elementary School in Ellensburg, WA. Prior to the 4th grade, I rarely saw a black person and even then, only in passing. The only other place I saw black people were pictures in text books or library books.
Speaking out against injustice is something that I struggle with; it is easy for me to give air to amongst my peers and mutuals but it is an entirely another thing to speak out publicly. The Furry community is one of the purest expressions of humanity that exists in the world today. Pair the Free Love movement with textile technology and the ability of ‘anyone to be anything’ while serving as a comfort to themselves or as a comfy for their friends.
Serving the furry community by running a convention is my way of peacefully fulfilling my oath to protect America against enemies foreign and domestic. After serving in combat, it was a lot harder for me to find something to live for than something to die for. When I say that I am alive today because of the furry community, it is literal and not an understatement.
Normally I would speak to the tension of “what levels of injustice should a furry convention call out?” and touch on it academically. That there’s a tension between the tone and magnitude of a convention’s voice and how welcoming of everyone the convention must be. Or, that you don’t want to alienate furries with more traditional views. In reality, the reason why GOTF doesn’t speak out against all the injustice in the world is simpler and less nuanced than any of that.
I am exhausted. That 24-hour news cycle that started September 11th, 2001 that undermines our emotional and social reservoirs has me as drained as it has to so many others around us, up to and including ourselves.
I can choose to run a furry convention, or choose to be more active in politics, or choose to be more active in doing my part such that society values humanity over profit (or values humanity at all). Any choices about where I place my attention, effort, and energy compromise what I can do in the other areas, for now.
GOTF, I choose you.
May we all find a way to make the world a more warm and humane place.
May we take the day off in honor of MLK if that is the best we can do for ourselves right now.
If we are able, may we have a busy MLK Day, to help make the dream come true.
Have a busy MLK Day if you can and have a happy MLK day if you have to.
– Baphnedia