A Dream Disdained

"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."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963


    It was 60 years ago yesterday that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. uttered the above sentence as part of what has become known as his "I Have A Dream" speech. This speech was given as he stood in the great shadow of the Lincoln Memorial in front of an estimated 250,000 people on The Mall in Washington, DC. Interestingly, the above sentence, along with the other "I have a dream..." sentences in this part of his speech which is near the end, were not in the original draft. Toward the end of the speech the great American gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, cried out, "Tell them about the dream, Martin"! King then segued, totally unscripted, into what can only be described as a modern Sermon on the Mount. I can't imagine what it must have been like to attend this speech, but I know that each time I have listened to, or read this speech...it sends chills down my spine. The great American historian, Jon Meacham wrote that, "With a single phrase, King joined Jefferson and Lincoln in the ranks of men who've shaped modern America."
    But I do not type this to critique Dr. King's speech (as if I'm qualified to do that), or even to celebrate how far we've come as a nation to fulfill the challenges in this speech (which we have). I type these words to lament the fact that so many people today have ignored, deferred, and even betrayed Dr. King's dream; especially the idea of being judged by "the content of our character."
    King's struggle was a struggle not just for black Americans, but for white Americans, as well. His struggle was for a color-blind society - one in which race would cease to divide, cease to be destiny, and quite frankly, cease to mean very much at all. It saddens me how what I just typed still seems so radical. It sounds radical because unless you've been living under a rock you are witnessing the replacing of "character" with "color," and rehabilitating "racism" into something called "anti-racism." 
    This is the ideology, not of Dr. King, but of hucksters and limited intellects like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi who pound their pulpits and tell us that white supremacy still seeps from every pore of American society; that it is America's original sin and cannot be overcome...just repented for, again and again and again. It is an ideology that insists that racism can only be overcome through racial discrimination, only this time to be wielded against whites for the alleged benefits of blacks. Writes Kendi in his bestseller, "The only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination."
    I read none of that in King's words, let alone in his most famous speech. King had no desire to be a permanent victim, which is what DiAngelo and Kendi and other like-minded leaders of today's black movement seem to strive for. King called for America to live up to its promise; a promise that he correctly said had been shamefully put on hold. He said that America, with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, had signed a promissory note and that black Americans had come to cash the check. He also called for black Americans, as well as white Americans, to take responsibility as they fought for their inalienable rights. He called for civility and honor in their struggle. King was conservative in the sense that what he wanted to "conserve" was what every conservative, properly understood, wants to conserve. And that is the founding. King knew that the only way to reach his goal was through the founding, again, properly understood. A color-blind founding, that ALL men are created equal and deserving of the promises of the founding. 
    Today's so-called black leaders, and to be fair, progressive whites, want to tell us that today's racism is more sinister than Jim Crow, and that no real progress on race has been made. Or in the words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who seems to be the laureate of black lives, "my deeply held belief that white supremacy was so foundational to this country that it would not be defeated in my lifetime, my child's lifetime, or perhaps ever." This is clearly a man who revels and rejoices in his victimhood. This is not the ideology of Dr. King. King's optimism, as it were, was in direct opposition to this type of philosophy. His conviction that the "arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." He believed in the capacity of America to live up to it founding ideals...his "promissory note to which EVERY American was to fall heir." But for one to truly embrace what was justly theirs, it centered around character...not color. 
    When I hear recordings of this speech by King and other speeches that have been preserved, I am reminded of the cadences of my grandfather as he railed from behind the pulpit against the sinners and the somewhat fallen world around him. They were both urging their listeners to harken back to their respective foundings; one secular, the other biblical. King was able to build a bridge between the two and found power in those ancient stories of The Old Testament. It's why Christians and blacks marched side-by-side for years during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. King found a moral dimension that is sprinkled throughout his speech as he called upon the ancient texts. A moral dimension that his so-called heirs do not have the ability to find. This is why King's words will live on and the DiAngelo's, Kendi's, and Coates' of this world are no more than brief fashions or fads that will fade with time. 
    Six decades later, Martin Luther King's dream is still not completely realized. But I don't think the biggest obstacle is the old racism one sees in movies like To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a new racism whose pessimism and particularism is reviving racial thinking; a new racism for whom white supremacy is immovable and color-blindness is, believe it or not, racism. These people have betrayed Dr. King while claiming his mantle. Don't let them get away with it.
write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com
    

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