Tag Archives: Martin Luther King

The Future Starts Slow

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Hello Tash Appreciators,

I came across a Nike advert called “just do it – possibilities”.  It’s pretty good:


It looks at various every-day people who are starting out in sport and asks what’s stopping them from taking their participation to the next level. Like many Nike adverts, it challenges the amateur to ask more of themselves: to run further, jump higher and fight harder than they have in the past or ever thought they could.

The choice of music used in the advert is interesting too. The song is called “The Future Starts Slow” by The Kills, and I think it hits the nail on the head – if you want a future filled with success, you’re going to have to expend a lot of time and energy in getting there. In sport, and life generally, it’s often the initial stages that are the most difficult as, although it never gets easy, once you’ve started to get better you can least look back and see the progress.

This week was also the 50th anniversary of Dr King’s “I have a dream” speech. TF has covered this in the past but it was a long time ago and I’m sure you’ll forgive me for coming back to it.

The most famous part of the speech (the “I have a dream” part) is towards the end but, at the beginning, Dr King talks about President Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. He says that, one hundred years after the Proclamation that slavery was to end, the “black man” (I’ve changed the words used) “is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”. He says that the Proclamation was a cheque which has not been cashed and he talks about now being the time for the bank of justice to pay out.

I guess that the speed at which ambitions are reached is directly proportionate to the scale of what you’re trying to achieve. You can go from being able to run a mile to running a marathon in a few months, but even Abraham Lincoln’s efforts couldn’t speed up a civil rights movement that took 100 years to give minorities even a semblance of equality.

All of that being said, fifty years after Dr King’s speech, we can look back and see real progress not just in the US but around the world. Sure, there is a vast amount of work to be done in the fight for equality but the future now doesn’t seem quite so far away and it’s coming more quickly all the time. I guess all we can do is think “we’ve come this far, why can’t we go further?”

I’ll leave you with Dr King and his superlative Tash. Can it be any surprise that such a man chose to wear one:

Tash Friday 30:8:13

Have a great weekend folks!

#keepgoing

P.s. If you haven’t read the speech, it’s well worth it: http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf

From where we are now to where we have never been

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

In November last year, I spent some time working on a TF about the American election. It was about how the hostility between the campaigns was detrimental to democracy. I binned it because (a) it wasn’t positive; and (b) I saw James Bond and I did the TF on him instead. 

It came to mind again on Monday when I watched President Obama’s inauguration:


After all the name calling that seemed to be filling the pre-election airwaves, America seems quite content with its decision. Democrats and Republicans are making progress with budget negotiations and there appears to be consensus about the need for gun reform. It seems that after all the hostility, two camps that were previously irreconcilable might just be able to reach some agreements. 
Maybe a good old street fight (in the metaphorical sense) is actually what’s required when people need to choose between two options which are opposites. I suppose you can’t really make an informed choice about an argument (or a person) until you’ve seen it/them tested to their limit. Making things personal is a step too far but going all out at the other side’s ideology and logic seems useful.

Monday also saw another important day in the American calendar: Martin Luther King Day. With Dr King, you see another example of where the coming together of diametrically opposed views caused a shift in opinion and change for the better. If those involved in the Civil Rights Movement had decided to accept anything less than equality then they may not have been so successful. 

In the next few years, Scotland and the UK will have big decisions to make too. Firstly we’ll have a referendum on independence and then, possibly, on membership of the EU. Hopefully, we’ll have a full debate which will leave no holds barred in examining the merits of each side’s argument. 

However, that might not be enough for the right decision to be reached. If you look at the campaigns of Obama and the Civil Rights, they have many things in common. But the similarity that seems most striking is that both had leaders who were/are charismatic, intelligent and principled. Can we say that about our political leaders today? 

Hopefully, as well as putting these issues to bed for good, the referendums in the UK will also bring to the fore genuine leaders who we can look up to in the same way Americans look up to President Obama and Dr King. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr King about the occasional need for entirely opposite views to be tested against each other; when you can’t compromise. I’ll also leave you with reminder that he had a particularly excellent Tash:


“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”


The similarities, and differences, between two of those photos are quite something. 
Have a cracking weekend folks!
Keep going!