Where Do We Go From Here

More than forty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was struck down by an assassin’s rifle, silencing the center the American conscience forever. King is most remembered for his peaceful protest that brought about the most progressive civil rights legislation to ever pass in this country. J. Edgar Hoover declared the peaceful King to be the most dangerous man in America, because of his incredible influence in the black community. King used Gandhi’s non violent protest means to put the looking glass on the oppressor and shame them while stalling the infrastructure and economy until his opposition folded. What made his strategy so brilliant was that he found a way to destroy the old order while providing a means for the two sides to come together as a single nation as opposed to a boisterous winner and a bitter loser.

On this anniversary of his death the question has been asked in many media outlets and personal conversations; is the dream still alive? The dream in reference is his prolific I have a dream speech, which I have quoted here;

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

The dream, that the United States can move beyond its racism and its past evil of slavery toward the day when skin color is as much of an issue as eye color, is alive. It may be as Langston Hughes Dream Deferred, dried up, festering, rotten, crusted over, sagging and combustible, but it is alive. The dream to have the US Constitution live up to its Declaration of Independence is very real. Most Americans don’t believe that racism is a valid system; the disagreement is really over what is racism. Is it wrong for blacks to get extra points on entrance exams because of a crime committed by ancestors against ancestors? Is it wrong to look at Middle Eastern people differently after September 11^th? Are mandatory minimum sentences wrong for drug that affects mostly poor black people? These are the questions we wrestle with as Americans, but the question of a racial caste system has been rejected on the whole. There may be a few fringe nutcases that actually believe in white power as a legitimate political stance, but their existence in the shadows proves my point that King’s dream may not be realized, but is certainly alive.

Although this question needs be asked every so often, I believe that King asked a more pertinent question for our time today and we should be asking on this anniversary. Where do we go from here; chaos or community? King asked this question in his last book by the same title. Once we as a nation pass all the legislation, what are we going to do? Is racism over once we have a serious Voting Rights Act? If so, then why did riots erupt in major US cities after the Act was passed? Why is it that much of white America doesn’t feel the visceral rage over Hurricane Katrina that blacks felt and still feel? Why were the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s denunciations of the US so shocking to non blacks? Essentially, King said that if the United States was to seriously commit itself to justice, then the passage of legislation that prevented simple brutality is only the first step. American must understand the effect of half a century of oppression on blacks, from the stifled black economy to the undeniable rage blacks held toward the US. The hard work was just beginning. Blacks and whites must to build towards acceptance of one another as equals and not combatants. Racism could not die with the stroke of a pen in Washington. What was needed was a massive re-education of the United States to establish a new way of thinking about one another.

That is where we are today. We have yet to make the decision of which direction we are going to turn. Will we continue to go into debt to build bombs or will we make the same commitment towards education? Will we invest in our future generations with the same enthusiasm that we invest in Microsoft and Apple? Will we stand up for the idea that all men are created equal or will we allow poverty to lock many into generations of underclass life with underclass schools filled with underclass teachers telling them that they can become not much more than underclass adults? Will we continue to see world events such as the free Tibet movement or the racial conflict in the Darfur as causes of the moment to get up in arms about while its convenient but to pack away when push comes to shove all for a self congratulatory pat on the back for making a difference in the world while Tibet is still not free and the Darfur conflict rages on? Will we choose to move towards chaos or community? In 2008, I feel that the answer is an issue of personal choice. There is no march to be had or speeches to give, but rather a commitment to the ideas to make and keep. We must commit to improving our schools, to changing our outlook on the world, to re-understanding the conversation we are having on race in this country.

Ray Charles has done many sublime performances of Katharine Lee Bates American the Beautiful, and he always starts with the third verse;

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

'Til all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

The heroes felt the ideas that the nation were founded upon were valuable enough for them to lay their lives down and we as the benefactors of their sacrifice must continue to work towards and believe in those ideas. We must choose community over chaos. We owe it to our founding fathers, ourselves, and our future generations.