I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The power and poetry of Dr. King’s words still resonate today, 54 years after he delivered them. King’s dream for his children served both as a clarion call against, and a challenge to, America’s preoccupation with skin color.
People all along the political spectrum, from alt-right to the extreme left, love this quote from Dr. King — when it suits their political purposes. Those against Affirmative Action, for instance, use this quote to justify a “color blind” approach to solving the problem of institutional racism.
The real gag is that these same anti-Affirmative Action crusaders argue that a system built on “white skin privileges” never existed. Even more astounding, many of them can’t, or refuse to, connect the dots between laws, cultural norms, and practices that necessitated an affirmative action program — a system that unabashedly favored the so-called “white” race. In fact, the whole idea of affirmative action as a corrective grew out of the reality that having white skin endowed a person with certain privileges and advantages over black-skinned and other people of color. The first and most successful affirmative action program was for white people.
African Americans and others, including President Lyndon B. Johnson, acknowledged that the structural disparities in opportunities are the result of a societal bias based on the “color of one’s skin.” Affirmative Action for minorities was and is intended to “reverse the bias” of always giving the nod to a “white person.” How can a person or group win in any contest, if they are not allowed to compete fairly? Why were blacks not allowed to participate in baseball, our national pastime? Before the “discovery” of Jackie Robinson, were blacks not skilled or athletic enough to compete with their white counterparts? Should there be an asterisk after the names of white players who established records while not playing against equally talented black ballplayers during the seasons preceding 1947?
As stated, Dr. King’s dream of being “judged by the content of their character” and not by “the color of their skin” has been used to both argue and counter-argue the legitimacy of affirmative action programs. When it comes down to realizing Dr. King’s dream for his children, it seems that, for many in the recent election, the “color of one’s skin” trumped [pun intended] the “content of one’s character.” For the record, 81 percent of white born-again/evangelical Christians voted for the current POTUS. Was the content of the candidate’s character ever an issue for them? Based on the percentage of votes, I would guess not. Imagine President Obama possessing character flaws like those revealed about the current POTUS. No way, no how would he have made it out of the primaries in 2008.
Only in a society where skin color gives a person a leg up can an adulterous playboy and serial monogamist gain the political support of the “Moral Majority.” As such, it becomes increasingly difficult to listen to and watch the likes of the grinning Joel Osteen pontificate about Christian values when only after a storm of criticism did he reluctantly agree to help Houston flood victims.
Watching and listening to these avaricious prosperity preachers causes me to wince and chuckle. Such religious leaders are just “talking the talk, not walking the talk” of the holy scriptures.
Perhaps the rationale for supporting such a character-challenged individual can be summed up in Oscar Wilde’s memorable quote: “Every sinner has a future, and every saint has a past.” Let’s hope, for the sake of our country, that Wilde was right.
Kwame S. Salter is an Oak Park resident and an occasional columnist for Wednesday Journal.