By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
As I write, we celebrate the life and message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a genuine American hero of the highest order. I am pleased as I compare the plight of the African Americans (called “Negroes” by Dr. King himself at the time) that I recall from the 1950s and ’60s, when I was old enough to be aware of their suffering, with their status today.
Whereas during that time it was understood that the blacks in Watts, a section of Los Angeles just over the tracks from my home, were not “expected” to cross over and live among the whites (and us few Americans of Mexican heritage), now of course they can live generally wherever they please, which is their absolute right as Americans. That, in its essence, was what Dr. King’s simple message was about: Black people, yesterday’s “Negroes,” today’s African Americans, were originally brought here forcibly, but they are now American citizens deserving all the rights thereof.
Likewise, I was delighted this morning as I tuned to my favorite FM radio station, KUSC, Los Angeles, a niche station that plays classical music, and listened to portions of Dr. King’s most famous speeches, as well as music created by black composers and spirituals sung by black choruses. Classical music is often associated with rich, stuffy whites. But this morning on that station, I listened to the magnificence of King’s words as they reverberated in the South and in Washington, D.C., at the time. I could feel his historic message pierce through the hot, humid air in Mississippi, across the majestic Appalachian Mountains and around the monuments of the founders of our country (who apparently had mixed feelings about who should be free and who shouldn’t).
Yes, our African-American brothers and sisters, most of them too young to remember the atrocities that were displayed on our black-and-white TV screens (no pun intended), have come far.
Or have they?
I think about the statistics. According to Wikipedia, in 2008, one in 11 black men were in the correctional system, compared to one in 27 Latinos and one in 45 whites. There were figures cited in other sources to show that there were more black men in prison than in college, but I find that those statistics — like most — sometimes are disputed. In any case, African Americans, along with their Latino brothers (though unfortunately segments of both groups often do not consider themselves to be “brothers”), are subject to a new kind of slavery.
The “slavery” I refer to here is the promotion of the glamour associated with thuggery and lack of education. Several of my black students at the college where I teach have related to me that in high school they had been ridiculed by their black peers as “white” if they studied and had good GPAs. The same is true in parts of the Latino community. I’m reminded of the pot of crabs in which some of them pull down those crabs that are more ambitious and attempt to climb out of the pot. Meanwhile, in many of the black and brown cliques in our junior high and high schools, thuggish behavior is applauded and encouraged by peers.
Nothing will condemn a young person to a difficult if not impossible life more quickly than the wrong decisions at an early age. Wrong decisions can sometimes be rectified later, but too often they cause a downward spiral — in flames, no less. The promotion of drugs and thuggery, including the more unfortunate forms of rap “music” (admittedly, I have a hard time calling it “music”), are placing our young people in bondage to poverty and hopelessness just as surely as physical shackles kept the slaves bound to their masters.
Just as Martin Luther King Jr. had a “dream” eloquently proclaimed at the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capitol on August 28, 1963, I, too, have one. My dream is that the black, brown, white, yellow and red children and adults of this country stop insulting and bullying each other, stop the fighting, stop the killing; that they start to give each other a lift out of the pot of poverty — not pull each other back in again and again; that they cooperate to promote prosperity and peace in each others’ lives, regardless of the lack of peace and prosperity in other countries that do not honor each other and continue to fight and kill their own; that they highlight each others’ cultures, just as KUSC did on this sacred holiday. I deem it “sacred” because it’s about the dignity of all Americans, without exceptions, without bias or discrimination of any kind.
Prosperity is not our right, but it is our legacy as Americans in this Land of the Free, this veritable cornucopia, this land of milk and honey, compared to the rest of the world. For here, we have the freedom to choose our individual destiny — not the indignity of being “tracked” into professions, lifestyles and level of income, as in several modern industrial Western countries.
Via radio stations like KUSC-FM, our communities are blessed to have the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and other artistic masters on the airwaves; likewise, this country has been blessed to have had, for too few years, the oratory and nonviolent leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His message lives on, even as we continue to grapple with social injustice. Nonetheless, Dr. King’s words provide an eternal reference for us as a guide. His place in our history is eternally enshrined in the new monument erected in his honor, fittingly between the monuments at our capitol honoring Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, two other giants on our American historical landscape.
— David Magallanes is about to embark on a speaking and writing career whose purpose is to promote and facilitate the attainment of the American Dream. As an optimistic American of Mexican descent and an educator in college mathematics, he brings a unique perspective to issues of our day. He may be contacted for speaking requests or for commentary at adelantos@msn.com