I Have a Dream....August 28, 1963

(S. Joshua Swamidass) #1

Almost exactly 55 years ago, in this year, the 50th anniversary of MLK’s death, on the steps of the National Mall, MLK had a dream…


http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/martin-luther-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-august-28-1963.php

Today, a police officer sentenced for murdering an unarmed black teenager: Former officer Roy Oliver sentenced to 15 years in fatal shooting of teen.

A few days, David French wrote about his families adoption of an african american girl, and the racism it exposed him to for the first time. America Soured on My Multiracial Family - The Atlantic He talks about racism he experienced from the left and the right.

They lifted pictures of my then-7-year-old daughter from social media and Photoshopped her into a gas chamber, with Donald Trump pressing the button to kill her. They put her image in slave fields. They found my wife’s blog and filled the comments section with gruesome pictures of dead or dying African Americans. They made me wish for the days when the left came after us; at least progressive critics didn’t want my daughter to die.

He ends on a sobering note…

We love our daughter more than we love our own lives. But the idealism of 2010 is gone. Then, we thought our family reflected the future. Now we know that was naive. Now we know that while the promise of Galatians—the promise that we are “all one”—is true in the Kingdom of Heaven, in America it does not yet apply.

MLK’s Dream was a Kingdom Dream. He invited us into the Kingdom of God, where we might live as one family. We have not yet arrived.

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(S. Joshua Swamidass) #2

55 years ago the March for Civil Rights attracted all of Hollywood, and was part of a fundamental shift in how we saw ourselves, and our politics…

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(Neil Rickert) #3

Thank you for that link.

I grew up in Australia, and came to USA as a grad student. And, as a grad student in New Haven, what mostly stood out about everyday life was the racism. It was everywhere. It was plainly obvious to me. Yet it was invisible to most Americans.

Oh, and yes, Australia has its own race problems – I’m certainly not denying that. What made the New Haven racism so obvious, was that I was from outside the American culture. People raised in America are partly immunized by the commonality of that racism.

The racism situation has been improving over the years. The improvement has been far too slow, but it was still improvement.

And then came the 2016 presidential election. And that brought out the very worst of racism.

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