Dr. King's dream still unfulfilled

By Koren Temple

Forty-two years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial center and expressed to the world that he had a dream.

We've all heard parts of his speech in one way or another. He had a dream that one day his four children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character; where little black boys and girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

And then, we remember his final words: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Almost a half a century has passed since that declaration for equality was made. But are we truly free? Would Dr. King approve of where we are today on the continuum of justice?

I can imagine that he would be disheartened by the lack of interest or acknowledgement of our generation. We are a sea of pacifists blinded by gaudy material wealth, competing for this 21st century ideal of the American dream, when in reality, the opportunity to conquer that dream is still uneven.

He would most likely shiver at our institutional segregation: in education, in the work force, and in housing. There is no doubt that urban schools get shafted in funding for suburban palaces. And the emergence of "gated communities" is reminiscent of the segregated suburbs of the 1950s.

Our jails are overloaded with discrepancies, men still make more income than women, there is a lack of health care in poorer communities of color, and whites make almost twice as much than blacks.

This is not the dream Dr. King had.

We do not walk as brethren -- in fact, we elude each other through the systematic acceptance of classification. And through this, we still find it acceptable to judge people based on the color of their skin than on the content of their character. This is more evident in popular culture, in the news media, and in our own private homes where we avoid being called the "r-word."

Hate to break it to you folks, but the civil rights era is still not over. There are basic civil rights being denied every day and we choose to look the other way. The fact is, we're separated from reality, fleeing from the truth of inequality.

We use the observance of Dr. King's memory as a weekend to go skiing, or as a day to catch up on extra sleep. But I doubt that sleeping and skiing would have gotten us anywhere 50 years ago when Jim Crow laws were institutionalized. In fact, nearly 30 percent of Santa Clara's population would be unaccounted for.

You see, Dr. King isn't just a hero for African-Americans. He didn't just fight for blacks. He fought for Japanese-Americans, Native-Americans, Latino-Americans, Chicanos, Chinese, Jews, whites, Protestants, and Catholics.

He fought for everyone.

We all need to wake up from the unconsciousness of modern socio-economic inequality and fully conquer the dream that so many of us have partially benefited from today.

I really don't think Dr. King would want another 40 years of silence.

* Contact Koren Temple at (408) 551-1918 or ktemple@scu.edu.