As another Martin Luther King, Jr. Day approaches, MSPS reflects on the dream at Notre Dame.<\/p>\n
Prior to a memorial service at Faith Apostolic last week, a buddy and I tuned in briefly to an old episode of \u201cA Different World,\u201d the early \u201890s Cosby Show spinoff about life for undergrads at an HBCU.<\/p>\n
This particular episode revolved around the departure of one character to the Persian Gulf during the first U.S. incursion into Iraq. The characters\u2014all of whom were black\u2014were debating the appropriateness of a young, talented black man choosing to join a war for a cause that some didn\u2019t see clearly\u2014or at all.<\/p>\n
In one exchange, a character said something to the effect of, \u201cWhy are you going over there to fight for something we can\u2019t see when there are plenty of problems right here that we can<\/em> see\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n As we left the house, my buddy looked at me and said, \u201cThey don\u2019t make shows like that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Already forming the answer in my head, I asked, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n Cynically, he answered, \u201cBecause there\u2019s no need. We\u2019ve realized the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe dream\u201d is still MLK\u2019s dream, right? From the speech. The dream is MLK\u2019s dream about kids growing up equal and everyone getting along and holding hands.<\/p>\n But the dream sometimes refers to something bigger, too. An end-goal: something quantifiable like one cup of sugar and two tablespoons of cinnamon and three whiskers of a cat. If we can just put together the correct percentage or ratio of white-to-black-to-Asian-to-Latino-to-Native together in a bowl and mix it around enough times, we will have the right recipe, the right product, the right dream.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t make shows like \u201cA Different World\u201d anymore\u2014a show acclaimed for purposefully tackling issues of race and class in America from the African American perspective. And we commented, as we drove to the church, that they don\u2019t make shows like that anymore; they don\u2019t make them because of a general liberal consensus that the dream and the product of equality already have been realized.<\/p>\n Is that true? Has the dream been realized?<\/p>\n Once we arrived at the memorial service, a colleague spoke to the congregation about the Kingdom of God. There in the same room were black, white, Asian, Latino, rich, poor, old, young: the Kingdom of God, he exclaimed. And there was cheering at the idea that for those couple of hours, the Kingdom of God\u2014the DREAM\u2014had been realized there in that space.<\/p>\n And then we left the church. And we filed to our cars. And we went home. And we went back to school and to work the next day\u2026 And something in the inspiring, emotional, celebratory atmosphere of the church was gone and the realization since has struck me: if the Kingdom of God and the Dream had been realized within the space and time and emotion of the church that night, then here on the outside the dream must not be so realized.<\/p>\n Of course there is progress, but the clear logic of last week\u2019s events reminded me once again that, in regard to the Dream\u2014MLK\u2019s dream about the kids and the hand-holding\u2014There is still some work to do.<\/p>\n Because they don\u2019t make shows like \u201cA Different World\u201d anymore. And because if the Kingdom of God and Dream exist inside the space of the church, what does that say about outside?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As another Martin Luther King, Jr. Day approaches, MSPS reflects on the dream at Notre Dame. Prior to a memorial service at Faith Apostolic last week, a buddy and I tuned in briefly to an old episode of \u201cA Different … Continue reading