[QSB-grads] Welcome back and Happy MLK DAY

[Miriam Barlow]

Dear QSB members,

Welcome back to the start of classes.  I think that it is fitting that
spring classes begin immediately after we celebrate the life and work of
Martin Luther King Jr., and the diversity he helped make possible
throughout all work spaces and social circles. The excellent workshops,
discussions and forums about diversity that our campus hosts help me to
understand the ways that I too can help promote diversity.  The outstanding
students and faculty I work with from diverse backgrounds provide inspiring
reasons to continue promoting diversity with daily mindfulness of the
continuing needs and obstacles to it, and the individuals whose lives are
impacted by ethnically based disparities.

The heroes of civil rights campaigns are deeply inspiring humans.  Martin
Luther King's understanding of the deep and lasting wounds to *all* when
one human oppresses another show the greatness of his character.  While
fighting for the rights that he and members of his community required, he
demonstrated commitment to never becoming the oppressor. While his
leadership caused deep upset to many people, and while the safety of
himself, his family, and followers were threatened and compromised, he
never advocated violence.

I am also inspired by the comprehension that King and and others like Rosa
Parks and Nelson Mandela  had about the personal consequences of their
activism and their willingness to take up their cause at all costs.  Rosa
Parks was not an unknowing woman with tired feet who just didn't feel like
giving up her seat on a bus.  She was a woman bearing the burden of
generations of oppression before and after her and she was determined to
make it stop then and there at whatever personal cost it required.  King
gave his life for this cause, and never flinched in it, even though he knew
his death was a likely outcome. Nelson Mandela went to jail and forgave
those who imprisoned him.  They all knew the cost of their cause and went
forward with it.

I am more impressed with them as I think about the causes I have taken up.
One of the first was to restore wolves to Yellowstone.  I was 10.  My best
friend Rachel Bush and I learned about food webs (probably from PBS) and
were sickened by the thought of intentionally disrupting the balance of a
National Park that was intended to preserve an unbroken part of nature.  We
researched the size of the park, and the habitat requirements of wolves,
and came up with a plan for reintroducing wolves into the park.  We wrote
it all down in a letter and sent it to Wayne Owens, a congressman who had
tried unsuccessfully for the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone.  He
wrote back and told us how exhausted and disheartened he had become in this
cause, and that the letter of two 10 yo girls gave him what he needed to
continue in the fight.  That year, the wolves were reintroduced and we
celebrated.  And then the backlash against that action started.  Many
people in our families and community were deeply upset about the wolves and
less than impressed with our involvement.  Farmers were on the news sharing
upset about how their sheep were killed.  What I had done and the negative
responses to it caused me tremendous anxiety for many years.  As an adult
30 years later, I can say I am glad this happened and as I see the beauty
of the park I can say it was worth it.  If I had seen the personal cost
this would exact when I was 10, there is no way I would have done it.  I
was no hero.  I was a child who sent a plan and a wish to a congressman,
who was the real hero, because he knew the death threats and threats to his
physical safety that he would experience through his actions. And he did it
anyway for two girls that asked and so many others who would grow up and
enjoy Yellowstone.

The leaders of civil rights and human rights movements fully understood the
high personal costs that their actions would incur.  They were heroes
because they knew the upset they would cause and that for it they would
give up their lives and well being, and they did it anyway. I am hopeful
that we can all continue in the efforts for which they sacrificed
everything.  And I believe that we can all follow in their example of
taking up good causes that are worth the personal costs and negative
responses every cause requires.

As we return to our classes, students and studies, I believe we are taking
up a very good cause- that the education of students is always worth the
effort, especially so when our campus can be such an exemplary part of
fulfilling Martin Luther King's dream about a future where humans of all
ethnicities work together in harmony and all go un-oppressed.

-- 
Miriam Barlow
Founding Faculty and Professor
Chair, Quantitative and Systems Biology
University of California, Merced

209.228.4174
miriam.barlow at gmail.com
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