If you look on your calender, you'll see that today is the fourth day in the month of April. Now other than being an average day to some and a special day (birthday, anniversary, etc.) to others, this is an historic day. It's not a good one either. On this day 47 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. It was one of the darkest days in a dark period of time when man, woman, and child were judged differently based on the color of their skin. We as a nation would get past that dark time and move forward. It isn't perfect, but one thing is for sure. I'm not required to drink from a "coloreds only" fountain. I can go into any restaurant I want and eat with people of different races. Things have improved, but there is always room for improvement. I could easily take this and turn it into something about how people are trying to sabotage the legacy of Dr. King. Glenn Beck has tried to re-write history and claim that Dr. King didn't die fighting for unions in Tennessee. Beck isn't important enough to dissect at this moment so i'll move on to the meat of the issue.
There used to be a time when a black person was beaten or killed and the community would blame it on white people (not the entire community, but you get the point.) Now it wasn't fair to pin it all on one race. That defeats the goal of obtaining equality and racial harmony. Now when a black person is beaten or killed, the black community looks within and sometimes does nothing to get justice. Damian Furtch was attacked at a McDonald's in New York. Damian is a gay black man. For those of you who are unaware, homophobia is everywhere, but you would expect the black community to be against homophobia based on what we had to endure during the 1900's and before then. Well, I was wrong with that assumption. In the 2008 elections, a majority of the black community voted in support of Proposition 8. Now the percentage was tossed around and we heard numbers as high as 70% and more realistic numbers like 58%. The point is that it should've been smaller than that. I've done research on Dr. King and the last time I checked, he wasn't homophobic. In order for us as a people to actually be able to sit at the table of equality, we must clean our own closets. It's hard to cry racism and bash gays at the same time.
There used to be a time when black people were attacked by dogs, sprayed with water hoses, and beaten with nightsticks. Completely unfortunate and uncalled for. What is there to say when you watch the news and see that a grown man killed a teenager over a cellphone? Any crime is a bad crime but black-on-black crime is something that all black people should be against. Don't take this as a racial beat down, but as a call for urgency. Anytime a black person is attacked or killed, there should be outrage in the community. What we see (not all of the time, but enough to make you notice) is the "Don't Snitch" treatment of the incident. Take Rueben Hand for an example. This was the boy who was murdered over a cellphone in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this year. His killer, Tommy Christopher Collins, was later arrested. Now compare that with Derrion Albert. Derrion was killed and it took a while for anybody to come forward. Now arrests were made, but this was a case where we saw the video of the attack, saw the people who saw the attack, and nobody wanted to come forward. Eventually we are going to have to start helping each other out. Even in cases like this where you can be threatened (which is why nobody stepped forward earlier.) It makes you wonder what Dr. King would say if he were still alive.
There are many things we as black people can certainly work on. I don't want to sound all doom and gloom. Things are getting better. The problem is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. When Dr. King fought for equality, he meant it for everybody. Should he had not been killed, i'm certain he would've made that clear. Sure he was black, but it is bigger than that. In order for us as a nation to move forward, we must look at the character of each other and not race. We shouldn't look at religion. We shouldn't look at sexual orientation. We shouldn't look at gender. Those things should not be important. We have to get over our fears and our prejudices or we'll go nowhere. We'll continue to be stuck in the same cycle. In the black community, we must come together. We must make sure our kids have stable homes to go to. We must make sure their education is adequate. We must stop treating our women like objects. We must not look at sexism as a positive or turn the other way and pay no attention to it. We can't teach our children that it is fine to degrade women. We can't support those who see no problem with degrading women. We as black men need to stop putting ourselves in positions and situations that could land us in prison. In short, we got a lot of work to do, but it is getting better.
So ask yourselves this question. If Martin Luther King Jr. came up to you and asked you how you were keeping his vision alive, what would you say? Would you be able to answer the question or would you change the subject? I know i'm not perfect and i'm sure you aren't either. Perfection is not needed to move forward as a nation or as a race. All that takes is determination. That takes good old-fashioned team work. So can we answer the question? What are we doing to keep the dream alive? I mean lets be honest, a black man can become president of a nation that once legalized slavery. There is nothing we can't do if we get up and move. There is nothing too big for us to attempt. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. His dream didn't die with him. It's time for all of us to lend a hand at keeping the dream alive. Black, white, hispanic, asian, woman, man, gay, straight, christian, atheist, muslim, and all who go in-between are needed for this. A bullet cannot kill a dream. Inactivity can kill a dream. So lets get moving.