I Had a Dream

Today is a school holiday in remembrance of Martin Luther King, Jr. A remembrance that remains fraught with controversy. MLK's legacy is still being hashed out in our history, but there is no question that the "American Dream" is more inclusive and free because of his work and life. The problem with days of remembrance is they become weakened reflections of the cause of the day. We learn how to genuflect half-consciously, say what a good person the day celebrates, and hurry off to a day of shopping or sleeping in.

MLK's contributions are complex and still very much in process. The legal wall of racial separation has fallen, much like the concrete Berlin Wall at the end of the Cold War. But the mental and habitual separation is still very much with us. We need only look at the re-segregation of schools and the educational gap among diverse groups in America to see how far we have yet to go.

If you want to celebrate MLK day, read recent works about him; read Jonathan Kozol's, The Shame of the Nation; read Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's Racism without Racists; or Thomas Shapiro's, The Hidden Cost of Being African-American. For that matter, just search a book site or the internet or the library. There is so much, there is no excuse for ignorance.

Perhaps you can simply reflect on how that "snake coiled under the table" at the Constitutional Convention still hisses and spits its venom. The only way we can be self-satisfied with our progress with real equality of freedom is to live constantly in a state of denial.

Is the dream over, or do we have it still?