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Keep Dreaming …
By Shaw Izikson, Winsted
"Of course racism still exists, stupid!" my friend Michael yelled at me. He looked like he wanted to throw a pot of coffee at me when I told him that I thought society has matured enough where racism doesn't exist anymore. "Racism still, and always will exist!" he yelled. "It's just not as apparent as it once was. At least not to you. Why should it be? You're white!"
This was true; I had no right to talk. Here Michael was, the owner of a "cyber-cafe" in a rural part of Maine. He was also an African-American living in a state where less than five percent of the population are minorities. Me? I was part of the "majority," whether I liked it or not. And as I was talking to Michael, I did not like being part of the "majority." Not at all.
Michael went over to the sink and started to wash a few dishes to calm himself down. As he was hurriedly scrubbing away at the grime and dirt, he told me a story about how his African-American wife, a doctor a the local health center, was treated by patients. "Most of the folks are pretty accepting up here," Michael said. "However, there are a few folks who have come up to me and admitted that they know patients who don't like her black hands touching their white skin when it comes time to diagnose."
As he paused between dishes, I tried to add some levity to the situation. "Hey, now!" I said in a raspy growl that I usually use in glib situations like this. "It doesn't matter what color the girl's hands are! Brown, yellow, green, purple, black and blue—as long as they're pretty lookin', they can put their hands on me anytime!"
Michael turned off the sink and looked over at me. "Son," he said with a slight smirk, "you will never learn. Will you?"
A few months later, I posted a message to "The RealPolitik Saloon," a political newsgroup that I belong to on the Internet. The message was simple: "Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr.!" Radio stations were saying it, television stations were dedicating minutes of their newscasts profiling King, and newspapers had pictures everywhere of him. Nothing too out of the ordinary—or so I thought …
A member of the newsgroup posted that King's "I Have a Dream" speech was plagiarized. The site that he gave out to prove his point, <www.martinlutherking.org>, was designed to look like a historical reference website, with pictures of King and the civil rights movement decorating each page. As I read through the site, I discovered that most of the text was filled with outrageous innuendo and opinions, which the site tried to pass off as fact. The site claimed that King was a communist, and that he plagiarized most of his academic work. Yet not once did the site give any hard evidence to back up their claims. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that one of the authors and "experts" at the site, who lists himself as an expert at race relations, is someone by the name of David Duke.
Another member of the newsgroup responded to my post by writing: "Denver says it's not acceptable for blacks to celebrate MLK day by raping young school-age white girls. Way to go DENVER!" The author of the post gave a link to a newspaper article on criminals convicted of rape in Colorado, which had nothing to do with Martin Luther King Day. I asked him what, exactly, that case had to do with Martin Luther King's birthday. He responded by saying: "I knew that it didn't have anything to do with Martin Luther King, but at least it made you click on that link, huh?"
Right after that, a different group member posted an explanation of why he feels that racism is a healthy "alternative" to normal human relations: "I find it amazing how we're the haters, when almost all the violence and lies are against whites. Why do we have to be listed as Haters, Nazis, etc. when all we're doing is trying to provide our own people with an alternative that is available to all but whites? Every other race has their own groups who get automatic attention to any minor complaint. No one represents whites when the feds intentionally misrepresent us!"
Someone sympathetic to what I was saying posted: "How's about appreciating our differences without hatred?" To that, one of the members of the group responded with this painful analogy: "I don't hate dogs, cats, horses or cows, but I don't consider them my equal." The more I read through the posts, the more I remembered the pain that I saw on Michael's face when I was talking with him about his wife.
The truth started to dawn on me: Michael was right. Not much has really changed in the past fifty years. Part of King's dream was that "All men are created equal." And yet, as long as there are a scant few jackasses in the world, the dream won't come true.
I thought about leaving the newsgroup, just to get away from the posts. Barely anyone stood up to the views of the racists—just two other group members who said it wasn't even worth arguing. I told this story to my friend Tito, who told me that it was worth standing up to the racists. He told me that if I did leave the newsgroup, that would be letting the racists win because their voices would be heard above everyone else's, leading them to believe that they are right in their viewpoints. After all, if Martin Luther King didn't stand up for what he believed in forty years ago, we would still have segregated schools, restaurants, water fountains … we would still have a segregated society. But as the folks in the RealPolitik Saloon proved, we still have a long way to go before the dream really comes true.
Shaw Izikson also writes for <americanfeedmagazine.com>.
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