MLK Jr’s Dream-Isn’t it Time We Fulfilled It?
One week after witnessing the historical election of this country’s first African American President, I have found myself dreaming often about the next four (maybe eight) years and the impact they can have for generations beyond our lives. Reflecting on the pride African Americans experienced last Tuesday, and the hope and promise that many more shared and wore on their sleeves, I begin to think about what this election could mean for the United States, and more specifically for our New Orleans region.
I have been talking with friends for some time about segregated communities and the apparent lack of integration among people across the United States. Not too long ago I realized, from these conversations, that the legacy and hope that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. left behind not just for African Americans, but for all of us living in this country, was that we, the generations after him, would take up his fight for civil rights and begin the difficult work of taking the next step, the step beyond. For reasons that I am not adept enough to explore in this humble little blog, this next step, this step of integration, never happened. Dr. King Jr. warned that de-segregation was but the beginning. I think of that and can’t help but think that the election of Obama signals that it’s time to begin the work that has been on hold for over forty years. It’s time to envision a truly integrated society in the United States. It’s time to truly enact laws, policies and ordinances that ensure a social justice of a sort we’ve never truly known. It’s time to reach across ethnic and language lines and create a new vision for our future. This is the hope I see and this is the issue that should be at play in all local communities.
Instead of moratoriums on multi-family housing (which are little more than not-in-my-backyard-ism code for “please keep those people out of our neighborhood), wouldn’t it be incredible to have discussions on how to accomodate and integrate our less fortunate neighbors?
Instead of excluding others from fishing in our fish pond and spending all of our energy and resources to keep others out, why not focus on using our resources to expand the fish pond so that newcomers can cast their lines?
For me, this election signals the possibility of this sort of dialogue that, I hope, takes us beyond race and beyond the stalemate of the black-white issue. In New Orleans, in particular, so much of the city has fallen to decay as a result of this segregated, color-lined divide, that prior to Hurricane Katrina it appeared it would always remain so. The storm, in many ways, caused further entrenchment by those fighting passionately on either side of this issue. And it seems to me that our hope, as much as the nation’s hope, for a revived city (or nation) cannot rest on this divided chasm we have come to accept as normal life in the United States. In New Orleans, specifically, it’s time to move past the de-segregation malaise and move into a world of integration. If we can do this, I believe, we will have better schools for all children, regardless of color, better and more affordable housing, equitable access to quality health care, safer streets everywhere, more diverse and richer neighborhoods, and a rising population. After all, isn’t the goal of a city to grow? New Orleans has been on a decline for more than forty years. Isn’t this our opportunity to put the city back on the right tracks? I think it can happen only if we can bring into our town the spirit of the promise that is an Obama presidency. What is that spirit? It’s the spirit of integration. It’s a spirit of revived civic life and of rekindled desire to roll up the sleeves and get elbow deep in the work of changing the dialogue.
The struggles and victories of the Civil Rights Movement made Obama possible. Let’s take the victory of this presidency and use it to make the fulfillment of Dr. King Jr’s dream possible. Our next step as a city and as a nation is towards an integrated society. Why not take the lead on this issue, New Orleans?
Tags: barak obama, integration, latinola, lucas diaz, martin luther king jr, new orleans, obama, president obama, puentes, race relations, segregation
November 19th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
We cannot have integration until we stop separating ourserlves. The moment you say African American you are already furthering the divide. We are all Americans. I dont want to call you African American, or Hispanic American or Asian American (really, I mean, Asian can mean so many different things it really doesn’t say anything).
So, integration begins with the individual. Stop seeing yourself as separate, and then you’ll realize we are ALL. It’s very simple but sometimes it becomes a difficult subject to grasp. The common goal of the Hispanic American should be to stop being called Hispanic American. We cannot be a nation of hyphenated Americans. All these separations must first disappear in our own mind so that then we can move on. I’m glad Obama is our first black president, but he definitely is not the first American president. Look at it that way. It’s common sense. By choosing to identify ourselves as something other than Americans, we will continue to give life to the divide, and THAT is what we have to fight.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
ERACE ASKS: AFTER THE ELECTION, WHAT NOW?
Now that Barack Obama has emerged from the long and arduous election of 2008 as the President-Elect, some of us might well rest now and be content with the scourge of racism being largely addressed. Not a smart attitude, we at ERACE would maintain. Indeed, now that the election is over, the task of bringing the races together to work and live harmoniously and successfully is being challenged more than ever. An increased number of racial incidents have recently been reported in various parts of the country, including St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, where a Ku Klux candidate was allegedly murdered for refusing to complete her initiation. There has been a sharp rise in the number of hate groups in the past 5 years, mostly related to an anti-immigrant sentiment. Racial tension is still very much alive.
During the campaign, Barack Obama told the public that a national conversation on race needs to take place among Americans. That is precisely what ERACE as an organization has been doing since its founding in 1993 in New Orleans, and what it will continue to do with what we believe to be greater and greater effectiveness. Chapters based on our model have been established in other parts of the country and even overseas. Interest continues to be generated in our methods of the “national conversation.” We have developed an ERACISM forum that works in which individuals of different cultures can express themselves in peeling away the layers of racial misunderstanding while maintaining a safe environment that such a potentially emotional interaction requires. So, as always, we are making our organization and its members and methods available to any facet of government, civic organizations, schools, and the public, in general. Please join us in this endeavor with open minds and hearts. http://www.eracismneworleans.org
(504) 866-1163