I’ve always been ambivalent about Martin Luther King Day. Since his birthday falls on my mother’s birthday, I would just as soon celebrate her birthday. Her dreams and visions for me had a lot more to do with where I am now ( for good and ill) than anything Martin Luther King did. On the other hand I was always in favor of anything that would give me a day off from work.
As an aside, I find it interesting that companies that extol diversity-such as my own-don’t really give you MLK day off, which is what found me at work earlier. Unable to accomplish much by the way, since our federal government masters DO have the holiday off. (I do enjoy the lack of interruption though and its allowed me to get some things done).
And has King’s dream been accomplished? Maybe. Just electing a black President though is not it however. Because I still believe there is a racial divide in this country. Not like their was in King’s era to be sure-but the simple truth is that whites and blacks still don’t view the world from the same point of reference.
And that, to me, is a problem. A problem I am not sure how to rectify. But it needs to be rectified so that the country can move forward together.
I found it interesting that when polled, 2/3 of Blacks think King’s dream has been fulfilled. 2/3’s of Whites don’t.
I would submit that King’s dream is still unfulfilled-but that’s because his dream got derailed. The legal obstacles are gone- to success by anyone regardless of skin color-but the mental ones remain. So too do the financial obstacles. On both sides of the aisle.
I’m not going to earn any diversity points for what I am going to say next: Martin Luther King’s dream did not include baggy pants, “doo-rags”, backward hats, and hip-hop.
I personally believe that there are two parallel cultures evolving today with respect to race. There’s only room for one. “American” culture-as a I knew it-is dying slowly. When it does, be careful what takes its place.
King’s dream, I believe,was an America where skin color did not matter. However I also believe he wanted a country that had shared values-yes, American values-and that part of his dream seems to be off track a bit.
I’m not sure how to get it back. The Atlantic has an interesting article about what I’m talking about:
“I think white people feel like they’re under siege right now—like it’s not okay to be white right now, especially if you’re a white male,” laughs Bill Imada, of the IW Group. Imada and Newman-Carrasco are part of a movement within advertising, marketing, and communications firms to reimagine the profile of the typical American consumer. (Tellingly, every person I spoke with from these industries knew the Census Bureau’s projections by heart.)
“There’s a lot of fear and a lot of resentment,” Newman-Carrasco observes, describing the flak she caught after writing an article for a trade publication on the need for more-diverse hiring practices. “I got a response from a friend—he’s, like, a 60-something white male, and he’s been involved with multicultural recruiting,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘I really feel like the hunted. It’s a hard time to be a white man in America right now, because I feel like I’m being lumped in with all white males in America, and I’ve tried to do stuff, but it’s a tough time.’”
It’s probably a part of why I want to go back to Asia. There-its not left to doubt there that I am a second class citizen. I can revel in my uniqueness and live quite well in my little Gaijin / Gweilo world. ( And the fact tha-for the immediate future at least-Gaijins /Gweilos can still make out like a bandit with women. 🙂 ).
However, the current situation here at home is a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. America descended from an English culture. Despite slavery, which many of the founding fathers recognized would have to go, the English values gave the new Republic a solid foundation upon which to build. Unlike Asia-which does judge a man by the color of his skin and is not going to change that way of business anytime soon ( at least as long as large Chinese majorities have anything to say about it)- America has evolved into a country where it does not matter what the color of your skin is. But there is still a need for a common culture-and for better or worse, that culture is the “white” English one.
I truly believe that was what King’s dream really was. I don’t believe he wanted to burn the house down-he wanted to make it stronger, by including more people in its foundation.
Now in the brave new world of the 21’st century, that makes me a racist. Just like I get branded as a mysoginist because I favor a predominately male military. Neither description of me is true.
In the Atlantic article, the author sees the change that is coming as a bridge to a necessary future:
There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group.
That maybe, but nations still need to have a common demoniator of something. I really wonder whether we will be able to find our way to that common ground of social belief. No doubt we will-but it will come long after I am gone. Probably when we have intermarried to the point that racial distinctions have no meaning. (Arthur C. Clarke believed that would happen by around the year 2150). If so what will bind us together then?