I'm in Facebook Jail!

Last weekend, on the 53rd anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's last speech ("I've been to the mountaintop!"), I posted a video of that speech on Facebook. I was immediately banned from posting on Facebook, and my account deactivated, for thirty days for violations of "community standards."

This is not a rare piece of video. I have posted it a half-dozen or more times in the last decade or so, and I've seen it posted elsewhere on social media. Facebook said it was in violation of copyright law, and I responded that, being an educator, I was claiming fair use as a rationale for posting it. That didn't seem to matter, and I now have 28 days to sit quietly in the corner.

In fact, I believe it was my commentary on the video that got me in (good) trouble. The post is gone now so I can't remember precisely what I said, but it was something very much like this:

53 years ago today, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. He told them that he had "been to the mountaintop" and had seen "the promised land," and he promised them that they would too.

The next day he was murdered.

Here is that video.

 

So maybe, just maybe, if you're reading this post and watching this video you'll feel like reposting it to one of your social media sites, like Twitter -- or Facebook. And then please tell the nice folks at Facebook how sorry I am for violating their "community standards."

I'm Returning...

 After several years of sporadic posting -- and wasted time on social media outlets like Facebook -- I've decided to slowly get back into blogging. I mean, now that blogging is, for all intents and purposes, passe (if not obsolete), it seems like an entirely appropriate time for me to return to it. 

Over the years this blog has logged more than 90,000 hits and garnered hundreds of thoughtful responses (with a few crackpots and nasties trolling for trouble). I appreciate those thoughtful responses, and I have even appreciated the moments that the crackpots and trolls chose to have serious discussions about whichever of my thoughts and words offended them. As a teacher, you're expected to change everyone's thinking. But as a good teacher, you know that this is impossible, and it's not even particularly desirable, from a societal point of view. The goal of education is not (or certainly ought not to be) to get everyone to march in lock-step. The goal of education is to get people to think critically, and in order to do that you have to do two things: 1] propose ideas that not everyone will like, and 2] to be willing to discuss those ideas.

I used to think social media outlets were the more appropriate venue for these two activities. In recent years I believe this has not been the case (although I still believe that it can be, under the right circumstances). When I look back on the seventeen years I've had this blog, I have to admit that I had more success in having frank discussions about our world here than on social media.

So I'm trying again.

I've also gone public with my own personal website, pictured (and linked) above. In the coming weeks I intend to link this blog to my website so that whoever happens upon it can hop over to the blog to see whatever happens to be my peeve of the day.

I hope to see you soon, and even better, to hear from you.