Posted on 01/17/2022 4:25:54 AM PST by Kaslin
This past weekend, I watched a number of documentaries with my children about an America that no longer exists. We watched as people of our complexion were violently denied access to restaurants, hotels, schools and more. My kids witnessed, from an undeniably changed present, a vile history that defies understanding. It was so hard for them to imagine such a world where they could be so easily rejected and reviled simply because of their beautiful color.
A hard-fought Dream has become a reality here in America. The codified systemic racism heralded as “heritage” met its demise because good people—both black and white—refused to stand by and do nothing. Unlike today’s woke (and often morally broke) Corporate America, there were no big business bucks to fund civil rights efforts. Activists painstakingly strategized, secretly coordinated, and publicly shocked and awed a nation with their peaceful protests.
I watched my children wince as they watched ordinary young people choosing to do extraordinary things that most refused to try. They were beaten for defying violence. Their endurance produced generational freedoms. My precious brown children, my wife and I are the beneficiaries of that courageous non-violence. We wouldn’t exist as a family without that heroic self-sacrifice.
All of society is better off because some answered the call of the “fierce urgency of now.”
On August 28th, 1963, 250,000 Americans came to our nation’s capital to call upon the federal government to fulfill a long overdue promise. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King proclaimed from the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Yes, he praised our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This is important for younger generations that are often filled with such deeply anti-American sentiment.
Those challenging the status quo of violence and real structural racism had every reason to reject an America that continued to fail to deliver equality. But they didn’t. They overcame instead. Dr. King continued: “…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.” Yes, the American dream is still alive, still delivering, still enabling those who seize opportunities to rise.
Civil rights champions marched with the American flag despite not being extended all of the rights our red, white and blue represent. They were hopeful. They were relentless. They were filled with faith.
It was this Gospel-centered faith that drove Dr. King’s Dream. It wasn’t Corporate wokism. It wasn’t atheism. It wasn’t humanism. It was the deep abiding faith in a God who created us equally and demands justice. “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood,” King spoke over the massive crowd of various hues gathered at the March on Washington.
When I look at my childhood family, it resembles that beautiful symphony. I was adopted into a multi-color family of fifteen with white, black, mixed, Vietnamese, Native American, and albino siblings. My parents never set out on a crusade. They just wanted to love children that the world had written off. They had faith that, following the seismic shifts of the civil rights era, God would continue to do serious soul surgery on our nation. I know our family played a role in that transformation in our own little community. We are literally the fulfillment of the Dream where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
The Dream has come alive in many other tangible ways. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson (a professor who stumped for former President Obama) declared in 1991: “The sociological truths are that America…is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all those of Africa.”
In 1958, only 38% of the American population would vote for a black President according to Gallup. In 2020, that rose to 96%. Clearly, the remaining and confused 4% of the country do not define us. Interracial marriages? In 1958, only 4% of Americans approved of black-white marriages. In 2021, it was 94%!
From the mid 1970s through 2014 (except during the early 90’s Rodney King riots) 2-4% of Americans cited racism as the most important problem facing our country. It wasn’t until Obama’s second term when it jumped to 13% and 18% after the emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Following a bumpy decline, it spiked again to 19% in 2020 under Trump as the rhetoric of Critical Race Theory spread like wildfire, sparking the very bitterness and hatred MLK denounced.
Dr. King insisted: “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.” What a stark contrast to today’s prevailing rhetoric and activism.
Racism is sin. And it finds a home in any heart that invites it in.
But we can choose to continue keeping the Dream a reality or give into the nightmare of perpetual despair. As someone who is both black and white, I’ll keep bridging gaps. I’ll keep speaking truths that know no color. I’ll keep believing in this sweet Land of Liberty. Most importantly, I’ll keep teaching my children that justice rolls down like a mighty river when we love God and pursue righteousness above all else.
"...There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs..."
And then you have people like Morgan Freeman who seems to understand this dynamic as well, when he was asked about the deterioration of race relations in the US, he said: "If you talk about it, it exists,” Freeman said. “It’s not like it exists and we refuse to talk about it. Making it a bigger issue than it needs to be is the problem here."
And the money quote of truth from the linked article: "...The sociological truths are that America…is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of black persons than any other society, including all those of Africa..."
That is the bottom line.
Excellent essay. Perhaps everyone should listen to a replay of MLKjr’s actual speech today instead of woke speeches stirring up animosity and looking for “equity”.
“...There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs...”
How true!
Blah blah blah. Africans were not the only people ever enslaved. African leaders sold their own people into slavery and slavery still happens today. Of course you don't want to talk about that.
As a white person, I have not the life experience of a black person. So I don’t know what it is like to be black. Therefore I can’t speak for the black person. Where I have a problem is being considered racist because I am white. That’s when a black person maybe needs to realize they have not the experience of the white person therefore they cannot speak for me.
“That is the bottom line”
It will never be enough. Not until we end up with a new racial order, like the one in South Africa where blacks always take the front of the line and the competent whites do the heavy lifting of technical work to prop up the black state.
Wherever blacks are the majority, the song is “majority rules”.
Wherever they exist as even a tiny minority, the song is “minority rights”, and the outcome is the same: they take precedence.
Heads they win, tails they win. The state must always put them first.
Morgan Freeman is an outlier, a guy who apparently has the sense to see where he’s gotten and remember where he started.
There are tens of millions more who quite rightly see racial grievance spoils as a never ending cash cow where the Morlocks milk the Eloi.
"As a white person, I have not the life experience of a black person. So I don’t know what it is like to be black. Therefore I can’t speak for the black person. Where I have a problem is being considered racist because I am white. That’s when a black person maybe needs to realize they have not the experience of the white person therefore they cannot speak for me."
Bravo -- well stated!!
I see your point. In a moral society, that would indeed be the bottom line, that we DO live in a society where minorities have more freedom than any other large country.
In this, an immoral society (or significant portions of it) it is NOT the bottom line at all, but instead, as you said, it is a much more malignant “bottom line”.
It all sounded good in ‘65...merit and character would be the defining attributes for society’s rewards.
But the lure of power and wealth was too much for such an egalitarian system, and instead we now hear that a new order of racial preferences must be installed, with all whites at the bottom.
It’s just a hustle; the immorality of it is unimportant to the purveyors of such a system, because they see it as just another game to get over on a competing group, and in a jungle world, that’s completely OK. My tribe gotta win...no matter what.
What I find astonishing is that Martin Luther King is held up as their shining star, yet the actions of many who lionize him on the Left (including many blacks) show that they could not give a hoot about the substance of what he said, and are more interested in using it as a political tool.
Which is pretty sad, and speaks volumes about the Left.
African Heritage population has been replaced by an anti
American Black citizenry who are basically American enemies.
Black is a political construct created and implemented on a grand scale to eliminate the minority minority and promote the concept of racial unity where there is actually racial diversity
At every turn, the African Heritage minority minority are chastised and vilified . This AH minority minority are the creation of the MLK vision and are the true Americans
Interesting article. He have a few things I’d disagree with, but it is good.
I saw an interview one time of Morgan Freeman being interviewed by a white woman.
She asked, "You grew up in Mississippi. What did you think when you left there and went to places like California or New York?"
He answered, "I found out it wasn't that much different." I don't know where the interviewer was from, but she was clearly shocked and didn't expect that answer. She moved on to another topic.
Thank you. I think we all need to stop with the racist stuff. It’s not a great thing for our country. It hurts more than helps.
The propaganda media should just replay Martin Luther King‘s “I have a dream“ speech today and comment on that. Instead they will probably play Biden’s pre-recorded speech from the fake oval office TV studio and comment on his (gag) compassion and brilliance.
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