DR. KING’S DREAM
(…and we’re still asking…are we there yet?)

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, to the hundreds of thousands who had gathered on the Mall in Washington, D.C. for a final push for civil rights.

I was overseas at the time, still in the wilds of Southeast Asia’s mountains and jungles, so was not present to witness the event first hand. Still, I couldn’t help but reflect on how, a decade earlier, a tough old semi-redneck from Missouri, named Harry Truman, had desegregated the Armed Services, in the face of very, very strong opposition. As they say, sometimes, some folks know when it’s the right thing to do about situations (although some cynics at the time felt the motive was to have more cannon fodder for Korea). As a young lieutenant at the time, I thus found myself at the spear point of that new directive from our Commander-in-Chief. It was not an easy task, but I dealt with it, even in the face of potentially bad incidents of racial conflicts within my unit.

Like my fellow Missourian, my resolution of such an incident was blunt and head on (and came close to getting me court-martialed), but it worked. A newly integrated trooper to my unit came back from a pass one night, completely drunk and disorderly. When the CQ corporal on duty tried to get him to tone it down, sign in, and go to his bunk, he became enraged, grabbed our company guidon’s staff, and tried to run him through with the brass pointed end of it. It took three other more sober troopers to help subdue him. Tensions were extreme, since the corporal was white, and the drunken trooper was black.

By next morning those tensions were even worse, to say the least, so I ordered my platoon sergeant to fall everyone out, and, to be prepared for a 5 mile hike with full field pack. As they all stood there, grumbling and grousing about it all, I made my appearance, not just wearing my field clothes, but also, a long, fringed, and beaded buckskin shirt, bone choker, and eagle feather in my cap (presents from a distant Lakota cousin). After a long moment just glaring at them, I finally spoke out:”Listen up! Some of you think it’s okay to come back drunk from pass, and fun to try and spear the CQ, just because he’s not your color. Well, I’ve got news for you, there’s only one color, and it’s –Red-. We all bleed –Red-. If any of you SOB’s don’t like it, that’s tough, because it’s the only color I know or will tolerate in this outfit. So, if anyone objects to that, I’ll be more than happy to help him find another home with a more compatible hue. Any questions? Move out!” By the time we were back from that hike, they’d been run ragged, and were too worn out to conflict about anything.

From that day forward there were no further incidents in my platoon, a mix of white, latino, and black. Regimental headquarters was not pleased with my politically incorrect approach, but, since my unit was one of the few which no longer had integration problems, other than a mild ass-chewing for promoting Native American “red power” over all others, nothing more was said about it.

But that was then, in more pre-historic times. Dr. King’s moment was of a more historic… now, and much had changed in those ten years or so between those times.

Despite the “establishment’s” fears that such a massive gathering could lead to riot and violence, and had prepared for it with more than the usual displays of law enforcement and other security measures, none of that happened, and the general mood and tone of that moment was festive and resonating with emotional exultation for the future. Dr, King’s inspirational words made it even more so, like icing on a cake. All of that despite the many years of enduring assaults, fire-bombings, and murders, by those opposed to their claims to such rights. It seemed like African Americans were finally getting there…sorta.

While rights can be legislated into law, getting a society to fully accept them, and fully include those for whom such legislation is made into its socio-economic matrix, is another matter. The residues of long standing bigotry and intolerance toward those of different race, religion, or national origins, rarely disappear overnight; and, as we have seen, even after another fifty years since Dr. King expressed his dream, we’re still asking…are we there yet?

Sadly, the answer seems to be…not quite. Not because overt institutionalized prejudice and discrimination have been eliminated. Not because oppositions to equal opportunities for all, to achieve whatever can be achieved, have been blocked, or that access to our society’s ladder to upward mobility is no longer denied. It’s just because some sort of atavistic resistance to such progress still lingers on.

Ironically,  it’s our government which continues to feed that atavistic resistance by the way it has attempted to level and equalize such things for everyone, thereby impeding Dr. King’s dream about the pace of our society’s evolution toward one based more on accomplishment, character, and merit, rather than on race.

Bluntly speaking, such prejudiced residues remain with us because of the way government bureaucracy insists on maintaining racially-based labels as –Hyphenated Americans – emphasizing our “pluribus” differences, rather than promoting our ideals of “unum”. It does that by requiring answers on any of its application forms for anything from employment to benefits, about our race, religion, or national origins. Questions which, besides having no relation to anyone’s qualifications in terms of education, experience, capabilities, and skill sets, are forbidden to be asked by any non-government enterprise. It thus perpetuates such residues of racism in our society which it claims it wants to eliminate.

Well, until we collectively reject such practices and focus more on the content and quality of a person’s character and merits, Dr. King’s dream will continue to remain just that, a … dream.

CENTURION