King's Dream - 40 years later

It is the 40th anniversary of MLK's famous "I have a Dream" speech. It is a piece of writing that has had a lot of influence on my life. (I never heard the speech in MLK's voice till a few years ago, when I caught it on the radio.)

It is normal that we overly glamorize the lfe of MLK. He was human, and he made the mistakes of humans. His "Letter from Birmingham" was not the brilliant philosophical system that it is made out to be. His PhD was mostly plagarized. And yes, he really liked white women (which were not his wife). So he shoud be no role model for anyone. But we idolize him nonetheless.

But nonetheless the speech was profoundly significant. It always saddened me that the speech which was meant for everyone had way more impact on whites then on blacks. It was a dream "deeply rooted in the American dream". That is true. It was a dream that "we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood". It is a dream that "one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood." This is something that whites have worked very hard for. It was a dream of true integration. I think it is sad that the black community has not fought as hard for this. Blacks want rights for minorities. Whites want rights for everyone. At a certain point in history this might have been understandable. But the time for that has passed. Certainly there is nothing wrong with "black culture" whatever that might amount to, but to grant special rights (despite their special persecuted history) is a dream not deeply rooted int he American dream. It is a dream rooted somewhwere else.

I think racism has not ended in this country. I do think that institutionalized racism is mostly gone, and that is all we really want the government to promote. The rest is about community marketing. Racism will not end as long as the races act differently. And they will never really be the same. And there will always be people who do not like each other. That is human nature.

But MLK's speech does not ask that we all like each other. He wants us to have a forum to sit down in a spirit of brotherhood. He wants our children to be able to school together, dine together, and (gasp) to marry. That is all nice.

I hope that we all take a good look at the speech, and try to live the dream. I hope that the speech will start to resonate with blacks too. Sure they want racism to end, but are they prepared for brotherhood with whites, Or are they stuck on brothahood?