Today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. – his life, his achievements, his legacy.
Upon logging into my various social media platforms, I was doused with inspirational quotes and messages from the man as told through my contemporaries. But still, among those celebrating one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, there are some who don’t quite understand the message Dr. King was trying to convey.
One of the people that I follow on Twitter, for example, made a remark that mocked white people for honoring King’s memory today. In her misguided attempt to use this day as a way to crack a joke and maybe gain a few followers, she demonstrated an all too familiar response to what Dr. King was trying to achieve all those years ago: equality.
Via: Planet Minecraft
Equality is a word that we throw around a lot these days: gender equality, marriage equality, racial equality, etc. But most of us don’t quite grasp what it actually means. Equality entails having equal rights for all people, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender or any other societal separation.
Many of us are under the impression that equality does exist in our society. And when presented with evidence to the contrary, we answer simply with, “Well, at least it’s not as bad as it used to be, and that’s something.”
Although it’s true that maybe people are more tolerant today than they were when Dr. King made his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, great strides must be made to achieve true equality.
When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, it called for the desegregation of public schools, accommodations like hotels and restaurants and other public facilities. This was a great step forward for our country. According to Harvard Law professor Michael Klarman, without the Civil Rights Act, we wouldn’t have the black middle class that we have today.
Via: Modern American History
But though laws have been created and implemented, attitudes and behaviors have yet to catch up.
According to a USA Today poll taken in 2013 after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the use of racial preferences for the admissions process at the University of Texas, 53 percent of Americans backed affirmative-action programs that came out of the civil rights movement.
In another poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, however, researchers found that “nearly nine in 10 blacks say discrimination still exists” despite the efforts made by affirmative-action programs. About one-third of those polled said that they had experienced this discrimination within the last year, and the number jumps to one-half when the question turned to the workplace or voting booth.
Economically, gains have been made as well, though not as many as there would be if there was complete racial equality within the system. In 2014, the level of unemployment for blacks was still nearly twice the unemployment rate for whites, similar to the numbers in 1972, according to USA Today.
Via: Daily News
And as our eyes and minds turned to the racial tensions both in Mississippi and New York City over the past year, we began to empathize with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, even if we were not fully immersed in it.
Perhaps that is why there are still films being made about this movement.
In college, I took a class from a professor who always said that all art – be it literature, film, stills – was a reaction to things going on in the world at the time of its inception. During times of war, for instance, sports films and films with superheroes tended to be popular because it showed people winning against all odds.
Apocalyptic young adult literature, she said, was a reaction to the youth of America feeling powerless to change the things they cannot control in a society by giving them a hero or heroine that sacrifices everything for the sake of his or her moral obligation to do what is necessary in the fight against oppression.
Via: Showbiz 411
The release of “Selma” this year is no different. It is a reaction to the racial tension that still exists in our world. I would imagine that the creators of the film wanted to instill in us a message of not wanting to repeat the past. Because even now, when we think we’re much better off in the way we present equality, Martin Luther King Jr.’s message is still relevant: “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.”
Let’s not let his dream die simply because we think it has already come to pass.
Feature photo courtesy of: Tavaana
