King's Dream Today

First, I ought to give a bit of relevant background on myself. As a student growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most constant aspects of my education has been the civil rights movement. Given the defining role that Birmingham played in the civil rights struggle, our educational system spends a lot of time on the events of the 1960's. Furthermore, because I live in Birmingham, I have met, heard from, and spoken to a number of the men and women who led the civil rights movement in Birmingham and the country at large.

In class today (Wednesday) someone asked about whether Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream has been achieved. I think Professor Pitney's response was spot on: the answer is both yes and no. As someone who grew up in a city famous primarily for being one of the most historically racist places in America, and perhaps the world, I can see clearly tremendous progress, as well as shameful failure, in both Alabama and the nation as a whole. Indeed, I believe that many of King's observations in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" are just as relevant to a discussion of modern race relations as they were when he first began scribbling them in the margins of the newspaper containing the "Call for Unity" of eight white Alabama clergymen.

In the "Letter," Martin Luther King Jr. condemns the inaction of what he refers to as "the white moderates" in the face of injustice, saying that "I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate," and that "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." I believe that much of the difficulty in fighting racism today stems from modern "white moderates" who are not themselves actively engaging in racist or discriminatory actions against minorities, but who still impede progress because they (wrongly) are under the impression that racism is either nearly or completely solved. Indeed, in many matters of rights, it seems that "We will have to repent [...] not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

This summer, the Daily Show actually had an interesting segment about this very phenomenon, which I think helps to demonstrate the disconnect which makes not just discussions of race, but also attempts to combat racism, more difficult. Here's the link to that segment:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12st63_the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-r-word_fun