By: Tony L. Jefferson, Jr.
As I look at society today, I can’t help but ask the title question. The overall message of King’s Dream was equality. Race, sex, class and others are but branches of equality that we have to achieve balance in. Have we transcended all of these to form a more perfect union? Yes and No. On the surface, our country has made huge strides in equality.
Majority of the country regardless of what you look like or how much money you make vote in elections, we all can have the opportunity to make money, we have the option to marry whom we please, and we have a member of the minority as President. These are surface achievements that often hide the truth path of equality in America.
New voter laws threaten to disparage and put at a disadvantage certain groups, certain candidates come out in the open with racial and class hatred; people are still killed because they may not share the same moral and fundamental values, and these are few of many things in today’s world that we still face. Granted we’ve made great strides, but these incidents threaten to take us back to a time where equality wasn’t the top priority in this nation. Take us back to dark times, violent and turbulent times in our history, that we’d rather forget than relive. It’s been said that if we don’t learn from history, we’ll be doomed to repeat it. That statement rings true as several laws that guaranteed equality are suddenly being retracted, certain freedoms we once had are disappearing.
There have been several battles throughout history in the name of equality. Native Americans, Women, African Americans, Asian Americans, and our current battles with Hispanic Americans, Homosexuals and Class warfare, have all had their moment in the sun with their fight for equality. As a powerful nation, it should be us that set the example for the world. Instead we’re divided by politics and little differences and our country looks like a kindergarten classroom, full of short sighted ideas and immaturity. Who’s to say blacks and whites can’t be friends, that a man can’t marry another man, that because you’re white you’re entitled to the best or because you’re poor you shouldn’t have the same as a rich man? Who dictates these rules?
St. Augustine once said “An Unjust Law is no Law at all”, in saying this many issues with trying to become equal or trying to save your rights are unjust in the eyes of those that make the laws, but the reaction they give is unjust as well. There is a thin balance, right now in this country, razor thin. Any little thing can tip the scales in either direction. Either we move forward into the future or get buried in the past.
