We Are The Dream

Rex Stanfield
January 31, 2010

For more than a decade prior to his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. went into the homes of white American families, particularly in the
deep south, and talked to them about their attitudes toward African-
Americans. He spoke to white children in their own living rooms as they sat
on their couches and recliners. True, he was not there physically, and he did
not enter the homes through the door. That would have been unlikely in the
racially-charged 1960s. But nonetheless, it was Dr. King himself, in the form
of flickering back-and-white images on television screens, delivering the
most powerful lines of his speeches during news broadcasts.

When Dr. King said, "I have a dream of a day when my children are judged
not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," the
message was not filtered through a scrim of journalism simultaneously
reporting and interpreting it. It was not drab newsprint the children would
have found too boring to read. It was the great man himself, making his case
"in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent," as Thomas Jefferson
once described his own declaration. Nothing could shake the fundamental
truth once the message had been delivered - not parents, not
schoolteachers, not friends or parents of friends, not the governor standing
on the steps of the university, and not the brick-throwing unrest and fist-
fighting school integration of the next several years.

Dr. King was a great man because he fought a social cancer that had
inflicted American society over 300 years. But his message was not new. It
had been expressed by a thousand other great men and women since the
17th century. He did, however, have the advantage of being the first to
deliver the message via the newly-invented television directly to the
upcoming next generation of children while they were still young enough for
his words to influence their yet-unformed attitudes. It seems doubtful he
would have been as effective without it. He himself probably did not
comprehend how the new appliance would help him ultimately and
posthumously accomplish what John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham
Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and others could not.

Barack Obama is not the realization of Dr. King's dream. We are. Millions of
white children of the 60s and 70s who did not grow up to become racists
despite having been born into a racist society. Dr. King did not care about
electing a black American president; he cared about an America where the
color of the president's skin is trivial. President Obama was elected by a
multi-racial majority. More importantly, Obama's opposition is based strictly
upon issues, not upon skin color. By anyone's standards, White America has
achieved Dr. King's dream.

Dr. King's speeches were delivered to assembled crowds of primarily African-

American attendees. But the messages contained within those speeches
were not directed at African-Americans. It asked nothing of them. It did not
ask them to change their attitudes; it was white attitudes that needed
changing. He did not ask African-Americans to achieve; it was assumed that
once they were given the opportunity to achieve, they would need no
prompting. African-Americans already cheered King's words. Caucasian-
Americans were the ones who needed convincing.

The political left owns racism in the US today by the way it defines everyone
according to the demographic categories it assigns them: heritage, gender,
sexual orientation, physical limitations, etc. By identifying, categorizing, and
allocating everyone into groups, leftists strip people of their individuality and
their individual freedoms. Last week, Chris Matthews of MS-NBC had an
epiphany - for one hour while the President was delivering the State of the
Union Address, Matthews stopped thinking about the fact that the President
is black. Apparently, prior to last week, Matthews had never had seen
President Obama without focusing his thoughts on skin color instead of
issues. Now, he has put thoughts of race out of his head. Welcome to
conservative majority, Mister Matthews, even if it only lasted for an hour.

Yet, the left's philosophy is that you cannot be one of them unless you agree
with them on every issue. No one who disagrees with the leftist views on
race, abortion, gay rights, or any other individual issue would be welcome as
part of the leftist movement, even if they agree on everything else. The
political faction that claims to embrace diversity will not accept diversity of
opinions, the most underpinning of all civil liberties, within its own ranks.

Last year a grass-roots political movement began to stretch its wings

beginning at an estimated 800 tea parties on April 15th. It is a movement
that focuses on a return to the vision of the Founding Fathers and the
Constitution. Some reporters at CNN, NBC and its cable counterpart MSNBC,
and notably, liberal activist Janeane Garafalo have claimed that these tea
parties are mere racist demonstrations. Infuriatingly, we all know that they
know it is untrue. No racism was in evidence at any of the tea party rallies. In
fact, this new socio/political energy is more inclusive and issue-based than
any our generation has seen. Garafalo, Matthews, and the NBC news
organization have abandoned all journalistic ethics and are attempting to
make news that doesn’t exist rather than report the news that does.

Did any racists attend these tea parties? Who can say? No one suggests that
there are not some racists extant in America, only that they are not in
positions of leadership and that racist attitudes are no longer socially
acceptable. If a few racists were in attendance, we have not yet made the
Orwellian leap into thought control. Individuals are still entitled to their
opinions, even ignorant and unpopular opinions. Anyone has the right to
have a racist attitude if that is the attitude he has. He may not act on it in a
way that denies the rights of others, but he may have and express his
opinion short of that without fear of molestation. If he happens to agree with
the principles this country was founded upon, and if that belief inspires him
to attend tea party demonstrations, it does not require the movement to
adopt or defend his racist attitudes. But it also does not require the
movement to turn him away and refuse his support for other causes they
agree about, such as limited government and market capitalism. In fact, the
dissent on various issues among participants illustrates the very
fundamental freedom of thought and expression tea parties are seeking to
protect.

Television, which four decades ago gave Dr. King the power to speak truth
directly to millions is failing its duty to the American people today. Rather
than allow the message of tea parties to pass through unfiltered, reporters
and anchors at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and CNBC distort their
reporting to suit their own editorial orthodoxy. Only at Fox News and C-SPAN
can anyone hear the tea party message in its own words, sans interpretive
commentary.

The political conservatives believe the USA and our society were built upon a
belief that everyone is an individual, not a mere representative of all others
who appear similar in some superficial way. One might think that this, too, is
a plain and firm truth that everyone, even Janeane Garafalo, would embrace.