...and I'm not sure I WANT it all to be fulfilled.
Yea, in honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s national holiday as well as the upcoming inauguration of this country's first black* president I am taking a moment to examine Dr. King's dream as stated in his speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. It seems that pundits, pastors and politicians are saying that Obama is the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream. I do not believe that this is so, and upon reading the speech again — I have not really done so since middle school — I find that there are a few points that I am not entirely comfortable with wandering about in the generally uplifting and inspiring speech.
This country has changed much for the better since 1963, when racial segregation was law, lynchings were commonplace, and the majority of white people seemed to think this was just fine. This was the atmosphere in which Dr. King gave his speech, and he gave it partially in his role as a Baptist minister. This explains, perhaps, why he chose to argue the way he did.
"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.'"
My version of the dream has the creed changed to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are equal." I do not wish for creationism to be promoted.
"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."
This has, for the most part, come to pass. Racism lingers, but there is no longer a legal divide, and the generations since 1963 seem to be increasingly race-neutral. For a person used to gender neutral language, though, it is left to wonder why it is the sons and not the daughters, or simply the children.
"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."
Mississippi is still contested territory for the forces of tolerance and those that would oppose them. It is better than it was then, but it has a very long way to go.
"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."
One can argue that this has come to pass with Obama's election, but it seems to me that too many people are still judged by the color of their skin. Not large public-view things, of course, and not usually things in which a legal action may take place, but stealthily and in personal situations.
"And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Aye, he didn't acknowledge all genders, creeds and religions, as I would have done. I wonder if this was simply the shortsightedness of the era, or perhaps a limit to King's dream. I do not know enough about the man to consider what might be his view on the Equal Rights Amendment, but I am saddened by the fact that this amendment is still not law. I also wonder what he might think of the diversity of religion in America now, and in fact what he thought of the diversity of religion in the world then.
Dr. King's dream was a worthy and lofty goal for 1963, but we can do better in 2009. We can have a dream in which all people, of any race, of any religion, of any gender or no gender at all, of any creed, of any sexuality, can be treated as equals under laws that are fair in a society that values all of its constituents.
* Barack Obama is of mixed ethnicity. His mother, Ann Dunham, was an Irish-American from Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was a black African from Kenya. He seems to strongly take after his father's features. I don't mean to say that this precludes him from being "black", I just find it interesting.
1 comment:
As to your note about President Obama, "He seems to strongly take after his father's features," you may not have seen a photo of him next to a photo of his maternal grandfather-- he takes after the men of his mother's side far more, looks-wise. The rest of the post is really interesting, too.
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