|
Post by Tim Collins on Jan 17, 2009 6:30:36 GMT -7
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will 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." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification," one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/books/chapters/chapter-kings-dream.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Jan 17, 2009 7:08:03 GMT -7
Amen
I'm going to have my kids read this. Thanks, snil
|
|
|
Post by Tim Collins on Jan 17, 2009 7:31:26 GMT -7
Good idea - but you should read the full article, gives great background on the speech
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Jan 17, 2009 7:46:31 GMT -7
I remember the background and was sourcing it when I saw what you'd posted. I have a book running around somewhere that I am encouraging my older kids to look at. We were talking about civil disobedience yesterday because the kids had discussed King in school.
One of my boys thought it was pretty neat that King had been arrested so many times and was still so highly respected. So, it gave me an ideal opening to talk to them about why he was arrested.
Thanks for the link--the kids are much more oriented to looking at it this way, and it will add some reality for them that I can't provide. I happen to think it's a good thing that it's so hard for them to relate to this. Makes me hope we're that much closer to achieving King's dream.
|
|
|
Post by webrunner on Jan 17, 2009 11:14:57 GMT -7
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Jan 17, 2009 18:46:05 GMT -7
You'll have to forgive me
I do not understand the easy comparisons some make between Barak Obama and King, although I suppose Obama has begun to follow in King's path as a trailblazer
but orator, writer, thinker--statesman, comparable to King?
Not yet. Not for a good while
|
|
|
Post by Tim Collins on Jan 17, 2009 20:49:47 GMT -7
The biggest difference between Pre. Obama and MLK. MLK had greatness thrust upon him. Pres. Obama pursued it. That is significant
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Jan 18, 2009 6:53:20 GMT -7
But given his history, it's also understandable-I don't have a problem with that, I guess particularly because he is a person of color--can't deny the significance of that
King was not the kind of man who could have or would have walked away, and there are struggles in his personal history that point to his ability to overcome and perservere. That is a trait they share. It is in part because of King (and others) that Obama has come as far as he has
I guess what I was pointing to is that only one deserves the halo, snil. Obama has a lot to learn and remains, in large measure, untried
now, on topic, I wonder what kind of president King would have made.
|
|
|
rosa
Full Member
Starting 5-Founding Member
Posts: 185
|
Post by rosa on Jan 18, 2009 10:22:53 GMT -7
MLK's dream also included economic justice By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer Sun Jan 18, 12:37 am ET AP NEW YORK
The focus of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 wasn't what had been accomplished — but rather his view of what still needed to be done.
More than four decades later, King scholars say he would take the same approach at this historic moment — the inauguration of the first black president at a time when the nation is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The crisis could widen the already large financial gaps between whites and blacks and make it more difficult to attain King's dream of economic equality in America.
"I believe that Dr. King would caution us not to rest on the election of a black president and say our work here is done," said Kendra King, associate professor of politics at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.
Although King is best known for his civil rights work, he was a staunch advocate for economic justice. In the months before he was killed, he had been working on the Poor People's Campaign and calling for an economic bill of rights. When he was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis supporting a sanitation workers' strike.
"Economic empowerment and justice was always a part of Dr. King's purpose," professor King said. "Civil rights without economic parity is still imprisonment."
While the election of Barack Obama is a huge step toward King's dream of a time when people are judged on the content of their character and not their skin color, economic data shows racial disparities are still pervasive when it comes to financial equality.
From unemployment rates to wages to household income to home ownership rates, the differences are stark. For example, while white unemployment was at 6.6 percent in December, black unemployment was 11.9 percent. For black men, it was even higher, at 13.4 percent.
Going beyond those simple statistics, studies show that economic mobility and the passage of wealth from one generation to another is more of a reality for whites than it is for blacks.
A report from the Economic Mobility Project that looked at income data over time found that black children were less likely than their white counterparts to earn more than their parents did. And being born to middle-class parents did not offer the same protections to black children as it did to whites. Among children whose parents were in the middle of the income scale, 45 percent of black children fell to the bottom of the income scale as adults, while only 16 percent of whites did.
"Many more blacks experience poverty, many fewer experience affluence," said Mark Rank, a professor of social work at Washington University who studies poverty and economic inequality.
And in tough economic times like these, people who are more vulnerable have more to lose, said Charles Gallagher, professor of sociology at La Salle University in Philadelphia.
"The black middle class is precarious compared to the white middle class," he said.
"I think it will have some long-lasting effects," Rank said of the current economic woes. "It's taken a long while to reduce some of those racial differences so this is just going to set that back."
Fritz Jean, a 26-year-old college student and retail employee in New York City, has firsthand experience with economic disparity. The new father wants better for Quincy Zachariah Jean, born earlier this month; better than the schools he feels didn't prepare him for college the way his suburban white counterparts at the State University of New York's College at Old Westbury seem to be; better than living in the small apartment he grew up in that he now shares with his mother and girlfriend.
"You want to own property, you want to have something to leave for your family, but you have to get that and to get that is already an uphill battle," he said.
He commutes up to four hours a day to school, trips that eat into the money he earns and take away from the hours he could work. He can't afford to take on the unpaid internships that other, more affluent students can, internships that make a difference in getting a job in radio, his career choice.
"I do want to pay my dues, but I need to be able to pay my bills," he said.
The tough economic times are adding to his worries. "My concern is making sure I get out of school and can find a job. It's really hard ... when you know that last year alone so many jobs were lost," he said.
"I don't know what's going to happen," he said. "Me taking all these loans, I could still end up working at Ikea."
|
|