Legacy of the Dream

Fifty years ago this week, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, DC.  In his speech, Dr. King said, “And so we've come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check… a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”  What he demanded was that the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” be guaranteed for all Americans, regardless of race.

Coincidently, this week I watched a documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen.  A US Army War College study conducted in 1925 concluded that blacks were ill-suited for combat due to an inferior mental capacity and lack of initiative and leadership.  However, under pressure from the NAACP and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the US Army initiated the Tuskegee Experiment and opened a flight school for blacks at Tuskegee Institute in 1941.  Expected to fail, these men had to prove that they had the mental and physical capabilities to fly, and that white pilots were no better suited to fly than they were. The Tuskegee Airmen, through hard work and perseverance, and in spite of racism and racist policies, became some of the best pilots in the US Army Air Corps, and later, the US Air Force.  Their first commanding officer, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., became the first black General in the US Air Force, and Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr., one of the instructors at Tuskegee, later became the first black Four-star General in the US Air Force.  Clearly, these men succeeded in spite of obstacles related to their skin color.

We’ve made a lot of progress since that day.  It is not unusual to see black police officers, firefighters, school teachers, principals, politicians, and and other professionals.  We have a President, who happens to be black.  We’ve had Secretaries of State, Generals, Supreme Court Justices, Senators, Congressmen, governors, mayors, and people in positions of power and prestige that are black.  These opportunities were not open to blacks 50 years ago.  Despite these advances, many would have us believe that the country has regressed all the way back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow.

These race hustlers preach that blacks cannot achieve prosperity without government assistance. Any attempts to cut government assistance are labeled racist acts.  They point to the disproportionate number of incarcerated blacks and label the justice system as racist, instead of determining what motivates them to commit crime and stopping them from committing crimes.  Race hustlers will note economic disparities among the races and blame them on racism instead of blaming them on individual people’s behaviors and choices.  Instead of preaching personal responsibility, hard work, and education, they inculcate blacks with the idea that the responsibility for their life belongs to someone else.  They spout forth that blacks are not capable of taking care of themselves and must be accommodated by the government and by society.

At the same time, these hustlers attempt to make the rest of us feel guilt ridden for this country’s racist past.  Aided by the mainstream media, we’ve accepted this baggage of guilt and implemented affirmative action programs and university admissions policies that give preference to blacks over other races.  Although these programs use terms such as “diversity” and “inclusion”, what they imply is that blacks are not capable of going head-to-head with their white, Asian, or Hispanic peers when it comes competency or academic skills.  Is that the legacy that the Tuskegee Airmen wanted to leave? Or did they want to show that race played no part in what they achieved, that hard work and dedication were the keys to their success?

We fear the “racist” label to such an extent that we are unwilling to speak the truth. When whites point out that black-on-black crime occurs much more frequently than white-on-black crime, they are tagged as racists.   When conservative blacks such as Herman Cain or Dr. Ben Carson point out that those ills of black society are the result of irresponsibility and personal failings instead of racist society, they are called traitors to their race. When we fear to speak the truth, we allow these race hustlers to propagate racism myths instead of addressing the root cause of and finding solutions for America’s social ills.  This hostility results in inaction on all sides and the problem remains.  There is still a problem but it’s different from the days of Jim Crow.  Racism lives and holds all of us hostage.  It holds some people back from meeting their potential.  It sometimes leads to inaction by excusing some blacks’ behavior.  When the word racist is wielded as a threat, without basis, it generates fear of repercussion and we don’t do anything about it, not even talk about it lest we be labeled a racist.  We, as a society, have yet to address it openly and honestly with the intent to find a solution, not to continue to lay blame. Racism cannot continue to be a crutch to some, nor be a hammer for others.

Over 100 years ago, Booker T. Washington, a prominent educator and author (also black) wrote, “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."

If we truly want to honor the memories and sacrifices of the pathfinders and soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement, then Americans, of all races, must stop listening to these race hustlers. If we don’t stop enabling the race hustlers, instead of Dr. King’s dream where “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”, we will be unable “to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood” and their sacrifices will be for naught.  Let’s stop listening to the hate-mongers and seek to find an end to racism for ourselves.