Posted on 01/15/2016 11:19:47 AM PST by Citizen Zed
As President Barack Obama prepares for his final year in office, the optimism that greeted his 2008 election - that the nation may finally have begun to divest itself of the racial animosities that separate black and white America - has significantly faded.
Rather than an era of progress, the administration of the nation's first African-American president has seen race relations appear to devolve in many ways. Recent history is reflected in a series of names - Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray - that have become shorthand for the understandable perception among many in African-American communities that not only is there unequal justice under the law, but black lives do not matter.
Disruptive, sometimes violent protests have choked the streets of cities including Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and New York.
It has made for a painful chapter in our racial history.
So as the nation prepares to honor the memory, work and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tomorrow, it must not just commemorate the Civil Rights leader himself, but recommit itself to the ideals for which he fought and, ultimately, gave his life.
Do the children of King live in the nation of his dream? Have subsequent generations been judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character?
Sadly, no.
Not in terms of education. "More than 60 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, school systems in the United States are separate and unequal," according to a 2015 U.S. News & World Report study.
Underperforming urban schools no doubt contribute to the fact that only about 68 percent of African-American public school students graduate, compared with 85 percent of their white counterparts.
While underrepresented among high school graduates, black Americans are overrepresented in the prison population. Despite accounting for only about 13 percent of the general population, African-Americans make up 38 percent of the prison populace, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
These statistics reflect the so-called school-to-prison pipeline that diminishes opportunity for too many young black Americans.
And there are plenty of anecdotal examples that reflect a society far from color blind. Just cast your eyes, for instance, over the recently announced list of 2016 Academy Award nominees.
In short, there are still too often two Americas when it comes to opportunity, criminal justice, education and a host of other areas.
The work of bridging these worlds needs to begin close to home, at every level. Groups such as the newly reorganized Pennsylvania Diversity Coalition, which grew out of the Harrisburg Regional Diversity Coalition, set a positive example. The organization focuses on uplifting local minorities by promoting education, economic development and business opportunities.
That the coalition recently honored more than three dozen local residents for their work to improve the lives of Harrisburg-area residents speaks to the feet-on-the-street hard work that goes on every day to expand area educational, economic and employment opportunities.
Such efforts must be emulated and encouraged.
On the other hand, relics of a less-tolerant past must be not only discouraged but dismissed.
Confederate flags continue to flutter outside too many 21st century homes, and merchandise emblazoned with the Confederate logo is still not uncommon - even turning up at this year's Pennsylvania Farm Show. (Organizers, to their credit, had them removed.)
This is not the emblem under which black and white America will unite.
The nation's racially riven past has proven disconcertingly difficult to overcome. Yes, there has been progress, as Obama's election and reelection exemplify. Still, a long path separates the America of today from King's promised land.
There is no more fitting time than on Martin Luther King Day to acknowledge that there have been two Americas for far too long. And no better time to begin the work of uniting them.
All because of him. He deliberately made race a wedge issue.
Black America has allowed a very local group of so-called black leaders to crap on the memory of MLK.
It was two Americas in King's time.
Now it's around fifty.
Criminals who wound up dead as a results of their actions and behavior, although I reserve some sympathy for Garner whose crime simply was selling single cigarettes.
As a result of Monday’s fake holiday I’m meeting with the head of a recording studio to discuss private mixing and mastering turoring.
On the other hand, if there was a Frank Zappa holiday. I would sit home and play his catalog from Crusin’ with Ruben and the Jets to Civilation part III. I would contemplate my place in the universe and cry uncontrollably during the Uncle Reemus solo.
Divide and conquer is a means to an end for these scumbags. Don't fall for it.
These statistics reflect the so-called school-to-prison pipeline that is the career choice for many young black Americans.
Fixed it.
Of course it’s just the Whites who will have to do all the “work.”
I never understand the talk of school to prison pipeline. They make it sound like police and prison guards come into school and haul away by young black men.
But in reality, these black men go to prison because they commit crimes, and are not in school when they commit crime.
So how do they figure there is a school to prison pipeline?, is that a slogan made up by some.liberal???
Good luck with that idea. Race relations have been set back 70 years under 0bama, to the worst of the WW2 era. I’ve never experienced such vile hatred dripping out “of every orifice”. And it’s my belief that tremendous numbers of white folks who have worked on what may be many years of latent and/or subtle prejudice are no longer willing to do so.
Yep. A slogan is easier than thinking and it avoids having to ask meaty questions like, "What is wrong with the culture?"
No, it's not an "understandable perception". America would be a lot more united if "many in the African-American communities" would accept the truth about these 4 guys: Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown died because they attacked a guy with a gun. Eric Garner probably sealed his own death when he started slamming himself against the inside of the police van, as the other guy in the police van said. The case of Freddie Gray was a tragic accident after a store owner called the cops on Gray for selling single cigarettes.
This article is nothing more than a litany of horse sh*t.
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