("How Fares the Dream?")
It is in many ways more insidious and
more troubling than overt racism. We are a society that imposes de
facto, if not de jure, inequality almost 50 years after Dr. King's
famous speech. We fail to place the necessary emphasis and focus on
education and thus perpetuate the plight of the underclass. We take
steps to deprive access to nutritional needs and care and talk of
diminishing social welfare programs. We seek in our words and our deeds
to do harm to those we should protect from the worst of all possible
outcomes,.
We may consider ourselves a more enlightened and inclusive society,
but I am certain that Dr. King would find the situation unrelentingly
distressing, notwithstanding the remarkable ascension of President
Obama. Dr. King would only need to survey the landscape of blighted
communities and see the unemployment numbers where young blacks suffer
so greatly. He would be appalled at the legislation recently passed in
many states clearly and unequivocally aimed at suppressing the black
vote.
No, Dr. King would not look out today to find a land where his dream
has been fulfilled, nor a mountaintop reached. And he would surely
demand from each of us that we do more to make that dream a reality.
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