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King Event Focuses on New Struggles, Metro Students Awarded Scholarships
For Fordson High School senior Laya Charara, the struggles of Arab Americans since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks share some parallels with those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Charara, who won first place in an essay contest honoring King’s legacy, said she prays the nation learns from its past follies.
“Dr. King unfastened the fetters of slavery. Discrimination … allowed a few individuals to represent thousands, and mar the very essence of what ‘Arab’ truly means,” she wrote. “Discrimination alienated and stripped the Arab American of his dignity as a citizen of the United States.”
Hundreds of people attended the MLK Scholarship Awards Reception, cosponsored by the Michigan branch of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the NAACP’s Detroit branch, Friday night in Dearborn.
The event, which awarded scholarships to Charara and other students, marked its 10th anniversary.
The awards aim to solidify relationships between Michigan’s sizable Arab-American and African-American communities. In keeping with that goal, the keynote speaker was Rev. Oscar King III, pastor of Northwest Unity Baptist Church in Detroit and the president of the Council of Baptist Pastors.
Both the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the NAACP are secular groups that have a history of fighting for civil rights.
The event gives $15,000 in college scholarships to local high school students who wrote winning essays about the meaning of King, said the directors of the program.
The first-place essay receives $2,000. The sponsors of the scholarships include Henry Ford Community College, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, DTE Energy, banks and Arab-American media outlets.
The second-place winner of the essay contest, Adia Abusbeih, also a senior at Dearborn’s Fordson High School, wrote:
“If you were here today, Dr. King, you would show people that if one person of a certain race or religion does something wrong, it doesn’t mean that everyone in that group is a bad person.”
Detroit Free Press
Laya Charara’s winning essay:
For Fordson High School senior Laya Charara, the struggles of Arab Americans since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks share some parallels with those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charara, who won first place in a contest with this essay honoring King’s legacy, said she prays the nation learns from its past follies.
Laya Charara
Fordson High School
I fell prostrate at the feet of the angelic presence. The light emanating from his hallowed garb, a snowy white robe tapered with golden thread, was of a consistency I had rarely encountered, not with my sight, but with a sort of lens fashioned to see that which is concealed fast behind the veils of injustice and falsehood.
“Child,” said the figure in a solemn tone.
“My clays on this Earth have long been spent, yet my passions have found an eternal repose in the hearts and minds of many, and for that I am grateful. Yet, even as I rest in this purest of homes, I am afforded a watchful eye over my struggling race that is man: it seems as though he cannot begin to abolish the factions and tribes so inherent in his daily dealings.”
Still, awe stricken, I could only nod in agreement.
The prophet smiled. “But fear not, youthful one. There is still hope for mankind, and it rests in your hands now.”
“M- My hands?” I stuttered “But Dr. King, 1 am a mere adolescent! What changes could I propagate in this world which you have not attempted to instate? Not only am l an adolescent, I am the archetype of a desert dweller, an Arab. Who would heed my words?”
At this, the figure began to blur and fade. An assuring and confident smile lit the features of the holy man, and as he began to depart, he uttered the following: “Mankind is united only when ignorance is abolished That is my charge to you.”
I am the desert dweller, living in a land furnished not with tine, free flowing sand. but with slabs of concrete, immovable, undaunted. I grew accustomed to the constricting rubber on my feet, and on other places too, which took the place of my loose-fitting sandals. You see it doesn’t take much to break new shoes in; a few strides will usually do the trick. This time, it was different. These shoes could not, would not, expand. Prying them off didn’t help either; they clung on tighter when I did that. I did everything with the rubber clinging fast to my bare flesh. One September 11th day, when the heat was too much to bear, I knew the rubber had to go.
Just as Dr. King unfastened the fetters of slavery, I melt the incessant rubber from the flayed and withering feet of my fellow Arab American brothers and sisters. Dr. King, the beacon, the herald of a sort of freedom which only soul, mind and heart can fathom in unison, knew this rubber had to go, and in its place, the cool of lush grass would be the eternal sensation. Our tools are similar too. Knowledge, faith and action; they are our compasses to a true America, to a promise land of equal opportunity, free of rampant discrimination. Discrimination which allowed a few individuals to represent thousands, and mar the very essence of what “Arab” truly means. Discrimination that alienated and stripped the Arab American of his dignity as a citizen of the United States. No more. It is time that honor is restored to the Arab American community.
On the 20th of January, 2009, those same hands which shattered the manacles of slavery, will rest upon a holy book and usher America into a long anticipated epoch of change. The spirit of Dr. King lives on in our new leader, and I, as the messenger of my generation, plead that he not shun our community, but nurture and educate it, to practice that which Dr. King enjoined. I urge that the written law. that so many have failed to uphold. be the sole guide. not the media’s propagations. I pray that this nation learns from past follies and abolishes them without restraint. Blessed is a nation whose inhabitants are provided with equality, liberty, and justice. Hallowed is the leader who inspires and forges bonds of compassion and a yearning to serve amongst people.
Thousands gathered about one man, his hand firmly grasping the holy text. His proclamations soared to heaven, endowed with goodness and wisdom.
The holy maim, the prophet, Dr. King, watched on, his eyes brimming with joy.
His message had indeed been received, his hope in mankind restored.