Remembering the Dream

On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Perhaps the most powerful voice of the civil rights movement, Dr. King spoke that day of his vision for America - a nation that was no longer being strangled by the rope of segregation and racism. It was one of Dr. King's most powerful speeches he ever gave, and, interestingly enough, he came up with the "I have a dream" part of the speech on the spot. He had another ending written, but spontaneously nixed it and delivered the lines that would become his most famous. The text of the speech can be found here, and an mp3 of the speech can be downloaded here.

Certainly we have come a long way towards achieving the dream that Dr. King spoke of some forty years ago. But we have not come far enough. This is the major point that I want to make - we have not come far enough. There is still a major problem with race in this country, and anyone with eyes can see it. The socio-economic gap between whites and minorities is drastic and doesn't appear to be significantly improving. A Wall Street Journal report detailed a study in which job applications were sent to various employers that were exactly the same, except for the race line. Others were sent that were the exact same save for a couple of other variables, such as criminal record. The results are stunning. Not only does the white person have a much greater chance of getting called back than the black person with the same resume, the study showed that a white person with a criminal record has a better chance of getting hired that a black person with no criminal record. This is institutional racism, and it is alive and well in 2005, 42 years after the "I Have a Dream" speech.

But let me back up for a second. I'm not trying to point fingers and yell "racist!" at the individuals who denied blacks with no criminal records while calling back white criminals. This is a problem that runs much deeper, into the subconscious of individuals as well as the culture. There is a subconscious tendency towards discrimination - a tendency that I believe is the result of hundreds of years of a systemic divide between races. And I have no doubt that I am as guilty of this as anyone, because I am a product of the culture. But we can't just say that it's a cultural problem and leave it at that. We have to fight for the dream that Dr. King spoke of, and step one in the fight is to face the reality that race is still a problem.

One of my biggest problems with conservative America is how they handle the race issue. You won't often hear a conservative in America start a conversation about race, but you will often hear them being very defensive about it. You're not going to hear Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity say that there is still a race problem in this country. You might hear them defend themselves or their party against accusations of racism or say that we now have racial equality to the point that things like affirmative action aren't necessary. And this is a big problem, because I believe that this denial and defensiveness is the major element that is stifling the discussion of race in America.

It is not enough, especially today as we honor Dr. King's legacy, to say that things are better now that they were in 1963. Of course they are, that's an easy thing to say. What's not easy, however, is to face today's reality of racism - a more subtle yet very institutional form of racism. And accepting this challenge and opening ourselves, as a culture, to a renewed discussion of race in America is a far greater way of honoring the life and activism of Dr. King.