Where are we now? Where are we Going?

Another Marten Luther King Day. Another chance to look back in retrospect and look at our selves as a people.

It is said that Black people all over the world have lost there way. We have shed the Victorian stertotypes that have shackled us since the first Africans were sold and shipped to the Americas. But now it looks like we have been mierd into a steryotype of our own making.

It is said the Various "Soul" whatever. "Black Entertainment televison" and various Gangster image has damaged the African community world wide. It depicts a false image of galmour and riches at the bottom rung of sociaty. And that "gangsta"-ness is something to be aspired to.

Many of the black leaders of today are these verious Reverands, and other church politik. Maybe because my Family hails from the Caribbean but I have never understood the obsession with Religios leaders. But Today they seem more and more corrupt.

The leaders of many African seem to be power hungry and corrupt, Chuck Taylor was deposed, but the Dictator of Nigeria still stands and much of Nigerias econimic wealth is stolen away by its government officals. There are many more and far worse countries on the african continent.

Oddly enough Afro-South Americans are hardely heard from. The South American countries have a long history of not acnowledging it even has a Black population, which is very distressing.

If Martin Luthar King was alive to day what would he feel? Disress, Bitternes? Have we as a comunity dropped the ball for thr fight for social equality? For making the world see what assets our communities can be?

 

I think that if he managed to stay optimistic in the times he lived in, his optimism would continue today.

But yes, I think he would be disappointed in many things. Disappointed in the whites who think equality is here already, disappointed in the blacks who expect things to be handed to them. Disappointed in the blacks who celebrate gang violence and cop-killing, disappointed in the whites who support racist stereotyping and turn a blind eye to racism in police forces. Disappointed in the Americans who believe America has no more room for immigrants (especially the ones whose ancestors arrived in the last two or three generations), disappointed in the illegal immigrants who willfully break the laws of a country they profess to love and wish to be a part of.

I think he would also be delighted by a number of things. Children of all races looking up to role models of all races, from an admiration of achievement rather than skin color. Blacks and latinos holding high positions of esteem and power in the U.S. government. Interracial marriages conducted without complaint from either side. And most importantly, children for whom the study of MLK in school is one of the first instances in which they are aware of the notion that skin color has any relation to character of a person. Children to whom racism seems illogical and out of line with the world they have observed in their formative years. Children who are dumbfounded and disgusted by the idea that a person having different skin color can make them less human.

MLK understood that the only way for good lasting change is for everyone to work together, and I think he would continue to pursue that change.

 

I'd like to see what MLK would think of world politics today. The war on terror and Axis of Evil stuff seems to have an element of vengeance to it, and I think he would disapprove of that. It's really too bad he died...I think his commitment to his nonviolence campaign shows that he has what it takes to be a leader.