50 years after MLK’s iconic ‘Dream’ speech, many still awaiting racism’s retreat

[spookyturtle 9,466]

President Barack Obama is often referred to on social media by the N-word. Some white college students still dress in blackface at Halloween and many black parents say that well into the 21st century, they still feel they must give their kids “the talk” about how to avoid raising the suspicions of police or others in authority.

Last year was marked by the shooting death of black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin as the youngster walked to his father’s home. And in North Texas, authorities in Lewisville say race may have been a factor in the separate shootings — one fatally — this month of two black men. Police arrested an Asian man, who said the victims looked “suspicious” to him.

This comes 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington and the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas and 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. These incidents also occurred after the election of America’s first black president, who on Monday — while much of the nation pauses to celebrate the King holiday — will be publicly inaugurated into his second term.

Despite that historic achievement and many other notable gains by black Americans, some historians, sociologists and others lament that race and racism remain immovable and odious stigmas in this country. And it has them questioning whether King’s 1963 vision of an America where his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” will ever become reality.

“On the surface people talk about the dream being fulfilled,” said Julianne Malveaux, a political commentator and economist. “But go just below the surface and you’ll see that’s not true at all.”

Malveaux noted that there are still huge disparities between blacks and whites economically, educationally and in other areas. She said she believes racism has played, and will continue to play, a large role in those discrepancies.

“Race is America’s sticking point,” said Malveaux, a former president of Bennett College for Women. “Nobody wants to deal with it, but it is what it is. Both black and white people are uncomfortable with it, and until both sides can become comfortable dealing with it, nothing will change.”

When Obama addressed the families of the Connecticut school shooting victims, he did so on a Sunday night. His speech briefly interrupted the broadcast of the football game between the New England Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers, and many viewers took to social media to spew hate-filled vitriol about it.

“Take that n----- off the tv, we want to watch football!” University of North Alabama football player Bradley Patterson wrote from his Twitter account. Patterson, a walk-on, was subsequently dismissed from the team for his post. He later apologized, stating that he was not a racist.

He was far from alone — that night or in previous online discussions about the president. On the night Obama was re-elected, social media exploded with a barrage of racial epithets about him, including this angry Facebook post from a 22-year-old California woman.

“Another 4 years of this n-----,” Denise Helms wrote. “Maybe he will get assassinated this term.”

In a subsequent interview with a Sacramento television station, Helms acknowledged that wanting the president killed was “kind of harsh,” but she added that “if it was to happen, I don’t think I’d care one bit.” She eventually deactivated her Facebook page, but not before using it to deny being a racist.

“Apparently a lot of people in Sacramento think I’m crazy and racist,” Helms wrote in a follow-up post. “WOW is all I got to say!! I’m not racist and I’m not crazy. just simply stating my opinion.!!!”

The aggressive nature of such missives has raised the concerns of many cultural observers who say Obama’s election in 2008 turned up the volume levels of racial hatred.

Marvin Dulaney, chair of the history department at the University of Texas at Arlington, said many in the country are suffering from what he calls the “painful demise of white supremacy.” Dulaney said he believes that many, if not most, of the outspoken racists in the country today feel empowered by leaders in Washington who stubbornly oppose the president.

“Barack Obama’s election may have spurred this thought among some whites that they’re losing status in American society,” Dulaney said. “His election may have happened too soon, before some whites could adjust to it.”

“They cannot accept the fact that a black man is leading the country,” added Dulaney, who acknowledged that he didn’t initially back Obama and was “absolutely shocked” at his election. “To have a black man as president, it upsets everything they have come to believe in,” he said.

Jim Downs, associate professor of history at Connecticut College, said he also sees virulent racism in the country. But he said that type of behavior might be easier to address than the hidden forms of racism that are not readily apparent or ignored.

Downs said that in popular movies blacks are still often portrayed in subservient or inferior roles that he said perpetuate the stereotype that they shouldn’t aspire to higher, more intellectually demanding positions. Even at the college level, he said, he still encounters students from inner-city New York who don’t believe that they can get jobs in fields such as medicine, law or engineering.

“We’re living in an era based on Jim Crow segregation,” said Downs, who specializes in African-American studies. “Those economic problems of a hundred years ago are still weighing us down today. So let’s change the terms of the debate. We’re talking about politics … but you have black mothers in New York who can’t get a flu shot for their kids because pharmacies in black areas won’t provide them.

“It’s hard for you to talk about whether King’s dream is a reality yet when you’re just worried about whether your kids can even survive from day to day,” he said.

Brenda Wall, a Dallas psychologist and ordained minister, has witnessed the racism of late herself and said she’s very much aware that, 45 years after King was assassinated, America still has not overcome.

Yet she remains hopeful that the country is headed in the right direction and will eventually achieve King’s dream of racial equality. But she said the struggle will not be easy.

“Absolutely, it’s realistic. Dr. Martin Luther King did not die in vain,” Wall said. “The work of President Obama is not in vain. It has been very harsh, the racism in this country has been very harsh. Enslavement and captivity has been very harsh.

“But faith is stronger than fear, and the kind of work we’re doing continues to move forward,” she said. “We will see the peace and the justice because the work goes forward.”

Wall said that one problem that many blacks and whites fell prey to was a false belief after Obama’s election to his first term that America had become a post-racial society, where the color of a person’s skin had no bearing on what they could achieve.

“They thought … that we had arrived, but we have not arrived,” Wall said. “The struggle for us is to be anchored in truth and reality and not in materialism.”

Dulaney, though, is skeptical. He said that he believes the current divisive racial climate will improve only after Obama leaves office and even then, things will only “go back to normal and we’ll know racism exists but it will be hidden.”

Wall fights that notion, however, and said that for her, King’s dream is well within view.

“I hope you don’t think evil is stronger than truth,” she said. “I hope you don’t think that a racist is stronger than we are. It has been a horrible experience for 400 years but let’s … look to the future. Our work is not complete, but we will win.”

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20130120-50-years-after-mlks-iconic-dream-speech-many-still-awaiting-racisms-retreat.ece

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Nice article Spooky, but give it some time. I'm pretty sure the purely non racist folks will come along and have their 02. to add.

[himher 634]

Don't worry spooky. Progress is being made and the African-American dream of self-determination is expanding. Soon more areas of the south will be self-governed and free to practice core community values just like New Orleans (murder rate 57.9), Birmingham (murder rate 36.8), and Jackson (murder rate 35.8) all in comparison to the national murder rate of 4.7.

I am not sure what the complaint is here. After all, there are no incidents of hate crimes against the African-American community reported in these areas and looking at the numbers there appears to be little interference with the practice of the core and basic values that these communities most cherish.

MLK's dream of a vast network of "chocolate cities", as exemplified by Nagin's MLK speech in New Orleans has been achieved and realized in none other than New Orleans itself, which holds the murder rate record for the entire nation. Amazing in the racist south isn't it.

Onward! Happy days are here!

Edited March 31, 2013 by himher

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Don't worry spooky. Progress is being made and the African-American dream of self-determination is expanding. Soon more areas of the south will be self-governed and free to practice core community values just like New Orleans (murder rate 57.9), Birmingham (murder rate 36.8), and Jackson (murder rate 35.8) all in comparison to the national murder rate of 4.7.

I am not sure what the complaint is here. After all, there are no incidents of hate crimes against the African-American community reported in these areas and looking at the numbers there appears to be little interference with the practice of the core and basic values that these communities most cherish.

MLK's dream of a vast network of "chocolate cities", as exemplified by Nagin's MLK speech in New Orleans has been achieved and realized in none other than New Orleans itself, which holds the murder rate record for the entire nation. Amazing in the racist south isn't it.

Onward! Happy days are here!

Case in point.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Case in point.

Why am I not surprised?

[himher 634]

Why am I not surprised?

The progress speaks for itself; therefore, you most assuredly and without doubt should not be surprised. After all progress is measured by outcome and the outcome speaks for itself.

NOTE: My family, on both sides, immigrated from Scotland in one case the 1880's and in the other case the early 1900's. There is no record, none, that anyone in my family, (though my grandfather settled in the South in the 1930's thus joining what I am sure, though he was a new yorker, a racist redneck), came from or was involved in the victimization that is the claimed core of the plight of the black community. The fact that they arrived on US soil with nothing and started their life here with nothing is in contrast to those who are born here with all of the wasted possibilities for what they can make for themselves if they make the right choices.

Extracting either guilt or sympathy from me or those like me is not going to be possible and the path from where they started to where we are today is a path that earns nothing but judgement for those who are fortunate enough to be born here yet wasted the opportunity to join society here and live as a civilized group. My deepest and most heartfelt non-apology to those who believe otherwise.

Edited March 31, 2013 by himher

[spookyturtle 9,466]

The progress speaks for itself; therefore, you most assuredly and without doubt should not be surprised. After all progress is measured by outcome and the outcome speaks for itself.

NOTE: My family, on both sides, immigrated from Scotland in one case the 1880's and in the other case the early 1900's. There is no record, none, that anyone in my family, (though my grandfather settled in the South in the 1930's thus joining what I am sure, though he was a new yorker, a racist redneck), came from or was involved in the victimization that is the claimed core of the plight of the black community. The fact that they arrived on US soil with nothing and started their life here with nothing is in contrast to those who are born here with all of the wasted possibilities for what they can make for themselves if they make the right choices.

Extracting either guilt or sympathy from me or those like me is not going to be possible and the path from where they started to where we are today is a path that earns nothing but judgement for those who are fortunate enough to be born here yet wasted the opportunity to join society here and live as a civilized group. My deepest and most heartfelt non-apology to those who believe otherwise.

Exactly.

[himher 634]

Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. Feel sorry for yourself somewhere else and blame / charge someone else for your problems.

Edited March 31, 2013 by himher

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

The progress speaks for itself; therefore, you most assuredly and without doubt should not be surprised. After all progress is measured by outcome and the outcome speaks for itself.

NOTE: My family, on both sides, immigrated from Scotland in one case the 1880's and in the other case the early 1900's. There is no record, none, that anyone in my family, (though my grandfather settled in the South in the 1930's thus joining what I am sure, though he was a new yorker, a racist redneck), came from or was involved in the victimization that is the claimed core of the plight of the black community. The fact that they arrived on US soil with nothing and started their life here with nothing is in contrast to those who are born here with all of the wasted possibilities for what they can make for themselves if they make the right choices.

Extracting either guilt or sympathy from me or those like me is not going to be possible and the path from where they started to where we are today is a path that earns nothing but judgement for those who are fortunate enough to be born here yet wasted the opportunity to join society here and live as a civilized group. My deepest and most heartfelt non-apology to those who believe otherwise.

Of course because when slavery ended, all the doors opened. You know, assimilation into main society. There were no lynchings and no segregation, it was a walk in the park, by your account. Because many black folks are treated like second class citizens in a country we were born in. We were born here, and couldn't even vote. So what's the comparison?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Yeah. Exactly. Feel sorry for yourself somewhere else.

I'm fine. I feel sorry for you. And those like you.

[himher 634]

Of course because when slavery ended, all the doors opened. You know, assimilation into main society. There were no lynchings and no segregation, it was a walk in the park, by your account. Because many black folks are treated like second class citizens in a country we were born in. We were born here, and couldn't even vote. So what's the comparison?

Who's this WE? You couldnt vote when you turned 18? People in New Orleans can't vote? Brimingham? Jackson? Detroit? Atlanta?

Looks to me like they are voting for exactly what they value and want to do. Hell those who are too lazy to get up and vote get their ballot delivered to their door and filled out for them!

I'm fine. I feel sorry for you. And those like you.

Well I won't take advantage of your sympathy and ask for a check to buy my guns and drugs and feed my family. That's SOME progress right?

Edited March 31, 2013 by himher

[himher 634]

Of course because when slavery ended, all the doors opened. You know, assimilation into main society. There were no lynchings and no segregation, it was a walk in the park, by your account. Because many black folks are treated like second class citizens in a country we were born in. We were born here, and couldn't even vote. So what's the comparison?

Serfdom is the general term for servitude to a superior, but distinguished from slavery by being regulated by custom. The name masks a great variety of arrangements. There were large areas of England where it had never applied, particularly in Kent, the old Danelaw, and parts of the west country. Though the basic obligation of the unfree was to work for three days a week on the lord's demesne, to assist at harvest time, and to pay certain dues, the details differed from estate to estate.

Serfdom does not give me the right to live off of or prey on my neighbors 2 or 3 generations later

Edited March 31, 2013 by himher

[We Keep Receipts 9,238]

Who's this WE? You couldnt vote when you turned 18? People in New Orleans can't vote? Brimingham? Jackson? Detroit? Atlanta?

Looks to me like they are voting for exactly what they value and want to do. Hell those who are too lazy to get up and vote get their ballot delivered to their door and filled out for them!

Well I won't take advantage of your sympathy and ask for a check to buy my guns and drugs and feed my family. That's SOME progress right?

My grandparents couldn't vote when they turned 18, many folks born back then couldn't. Or are you ignoring that because it doesn't support your way of thinking.

[himher 634]

My grandparents couldn't vote when they turned 18, many folks born back then couldn't. Or are you ignoring that because it doesn't support your way of thinking.

I frankly don't give a hoot or take responsibility for nor do I owe the community anything for what happened to your grandparents 6-10 decades ago or what happened to them before my parents were born. My grandparents and their parents immigrated as children from places where they and their fathers and their fathers before them were persecuted because of their class and they couldnt vote either.

IN FACT this whole country was founded for that very reason.

I'm talking about the 50 years that have passed since they COULD vote. 50 years has more than burned off all available and possible excuses, except for one, that being personal failure of the community, for inability to join with and live by the basic rules of the rest of civilization.

[Danno 1,228]

Don't worry spooky. Progress is being made....

Dude, now you know folks get upset with hate-facts.