Sadly, it seems that day is just as far off now as it was then. Dr. King's Dream has been dealt a mortal blow by those who it should have benefited the most.
In Florida, we know about a 17 year old black man named Trayvon Martin. We know about a 26 year old Hispanic man named George Zimmerman, who volunteered with the neighborhood watch in his gated community. We also know that he is of mixed ancestry (His father is white, his mother Peruvian).
We know that Zimmerman, called the police to report a "suspicious individual", and against the instructions of a police dispatcher, was following Martin. We know that some manner of altercation took place in which Zimmerman was wounded. We also know that the altercation ended when Zimmerman (by his own admission) shot and killed Martin. Beyond that, we know nothing.
But don't say that to those who use Dr. King's name as a rallying point, and corrupt his Dream for their own gain. Within days of this story becoming a national one (even though the evening in question was nearly a month prior), the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were on scene in a little Florida suburb. They held rallies, spoke to any microphone nearby, and in general stomped all over Dr. King's legacy in the process.
"Look Jesse! There's a microphone!" "What's it for?" "Don't know, don't care. I feel the need to pontificate! C'mon!"
The focus dropped from "Man kills teenager with gun" to "What goodies did the helpless teen have on him from his trip to the convenience store? And what did the "white-Hispanic wannabe cop" have against a young man wearing a hoodie?".
A Congressman breaks decorum on the House floor by wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media light up with pictures and videos of individuals, professional sports teams, and other groups "sporting hood" in solidarity with... I don't know, I guess people trying to keep some drizzle off their faces? Junk dealing little people on far off planets?
I'm not saying everyone who wears a hoodie is bad, but these guys seem a little shady to me...
Stop and think about that for just a second. A private group of citizens are offering money to people to hunt down, and capture another private citizen, so that justice is done. And it takes commentary from Conservative media before anyone thinks that this crosses a couple of lines, and this action is condemned. Had the shooter been a black man, and the GOP put out a bounty, we would STILL be hearing the outrage and the phrase "lynch mob" would be on everyone's lips.
Taken on the whole, the bounty, the instant appearance of the Revs Jackson and Sharpton, the focus on the color of the skin of the victim, type of neighborhood the shooting took place in, and the ethnicity of the shooter, etc. all adds up to yet another nail in the coffin of Dr. King's Dream.
I spoke a few years ago on this very blog how the election of the nation's first black president caused a setback in what Dr. King worked, and indeed died, for. Barack Obama received an unprecedented percentage of the black vote. When asked why, many black people replied that it was his skin color that was the deciding factor. Not what he stood for. Not what drugs he had done or not done when he was younger, but the color of his skin. Some couldn't even identify who he was actually running with, figuring that as long as the black guy got in, having Sarah Palin as vice-president, even though they disagreed with nearly everything she stood for, would have been just fine.
Now, things in the country have gotten to the point where a single young black man is gunned down in a presumably white (because we need to know it is a gated community) neighborhood by a man with a white (and let's call a spade a spade, shall we) Jewish sounding name, and the instant assumption is that it was a hate crime (national coverage of one death, and while that's been going on, hundreds of other young black men have died in violence on our streets).
The victim was guilty of nothing more than walking with a hood up, carrying skittles and an iced tea, and a white man who thought of himself as some sort of vigilante hero, guns him down. We know more about these two men, and will continue to learn more about them in the next few weeks, I'm sure, and I'm willing to bet that more people could identify them by picture than they can the Vice-president.
But through it all, we have not been permitted to forget that the victim is black. I have seen brought to the fore a statistic that says the leading cause of death for young black men (ages 15-24) is homicide. It's not a stretch to conclude that the vast majority of those were caused by firearms. More often than not, the skin color of the victim and the perpetrator are the same. The crime is not because of SKIN color as often as it is CLOTHING color. Gangs attract young black kids, and gang violence leads to their deaths. We know that gangs had nothing to do with the Martin case, so one must wonder at the statistic being brought up now. Yes, Zimmerman had a gun. But that really isn't the point, is it? He didn't set out to gun down a black kid that night, so how can that statistic mean anything?
My point is that in this country, too many people have forgotten Dr. King's ideals, while at the same time spouting his words. They see skin color and STILL make snap decisions about a person. And some of the worst offenders are those for whom Dr. King did so much. They have names like Jackson, Sharpton, Wright and Farrakhan. They compare the Supreme Court of the United States to the KKK. The tell "Whites" that "Unless you change, your end has come".
This country is easily as divided today as it was 50 years ago. The only thing missing are the signs telling people what drinking fountains to use. However, you can go to any major city in America, and outside of whatever area is set aside for commerce and/or tourism, you can find neighborhoods. And in the neighborhoods, if your skin is not the right color, you could get robbed, beaten, or worse. Knowing what areas "belong" to what group is second nature to those who live in the cities. There is no need for signs.
If there were any time for the people of this nation to come together, it is now. It doesn't matter that Trayvon Martin was black or George Zimmerman Hispanic with a white father. The Skittles, tea and hoodie are meaningless objects. Martin's previous minor offenses, or Zimmerman's aspirations to herodom, all pointless.
All that matters is that a young man is dead by the hand of a gung-ho neighborhood watch "captain". The dead are buried, and the accused will face justice (hopefully from a jury not too tainted by the media's overzealous coverage and reporting of "facts").
When all is said and done, nothing else matters. Dr. King understood this.
He wasn't just speaking to black people on that August day. He was speaking to all of us. He recognized that the freedom he sought for black people was inextricably tied to the nation's whites, and that hatred of whites was pointless. He acknowledged and called "brothers" the whites who were in the crowd in support of his cause. He spoke to recognizing people not for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.
He spoke of not being guilty of wrongful deeds in the pursuit of freedom, and eschewing bitterness and hatred. He spoke of peace, and of unity of ALL people, regardless of skin color or religion.
He didn't speak of bounties. He didn't speak of hoodies, tea, or Skittles. He didn't speak of vigilantism. He spoke of breaking out of ghettos, not entrenching into them.
The freedom he sought has been gained. Unfortunately, there was more to his Dream than just that. And that has been forgotten.
Nearly fifty years. That was a pretty good run. Maybe, in the days to come, Dr. King's ideas, his very legacy, can be resurrected.
For now, we can only hope that the new divisions that separate us won't lead to a darkness from which we cannot hope to emerge. It doesn't matter, the color of skin of the person or persons who lead us from this edge we find ourselves on. What matters is in our own hearts.
Will we continue to shout hateful, divisive rhetoric from bullhorns, microphones and pulpits?
Or will we have the courage to stand and simply speak the words "I have a Dream"?
