MLK's "Dream" 50 Years Later

Today is Inauguration Day (the ceremonial version, that is). President Obama was sworn into office for his second term yesterday, January 20th. Today is a significant day, because it is also the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birth. In today's ceremony, the president will be sworn in using not one, but two bibles: one which had belonged to Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, and another that belonged to King. The significance of Obama's presidency as it relates to these two great men should not be ignored.
In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington D.C. He called for an end to the inequities that hampered the lives of blacks in the United States. He called for justice for blacks. He called for the United States to "rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' "
To a large extent this nation has done that, as witnessed by the fact that we elected a black man president, not once, but twice. Blacks are represented in every segment of society, in the business world, on college campuses, and in every day life. Race or color are no longer impediments to higher education or higher earnings.
That's not to say that racism is dead. It is unfortunately alive and well, if my brief scan of internet blogs is any indication. But the opportunities are there for those with the will and the drive to take advantage of them. Unfortunately, more blacks than whites still live in poverty; black children too often languish in failing inner-city schools, and inner-city neighborhoods where drug deals and prostitution appear to be the only future available for a people trapped in a welfare system that was intended to help them. And any mention of change, of overhauling the welfare system or the school system is met with howls of outrage from those who claim to represent the interests of the black community, yet nothing changes or gets better for those who are caught in the hopelessness of welfare dependency. Chalk it up to the law of unintended consequences.
King's dream of having his children judged by the content of their character rather than their skin color is unfortunately still only a dream. A political system which still sees only black and white is unable to be color-blind. As long as the powers that be in this nation continue to make judgments about a person's abilities based on the color of his or her skin, we will never be able to move beyond race as a factor in the way this nation conducts its affairs. Until educational opportunities at the primary and secondary level are truly equal, the blacks trapped in failing schools will never be equal. Until we can hire - and fire - based on an individual's job performance without fear of a class-action lawsuit for racism, black workers will never be equal. And until the day that blacks can be freed from the destructiveness of illegitimacy, drugs, welfare, and ghettos, there will never be true justice in this country.