COMMENTARY
Rod Watson: King’s take on dream? ‘Yes, but . . .’
Those on both sides of the civil rights divide like to argue about what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he were still around.
My guess is that, if he were here to celebrate his 80th birthday today and Barack Obama’s inauguration next week, he’d say, “Yes, but . . .”
The election of the nation’s first black president speaks for itself about how far we’ve come. But it’s hardly the totality of what King was talking about.
The essence of his message can better be found in the pages of “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression,” the report released today by United for a Fair Economy.
The analysis from the multiracial Boston, Mass., advocacy group does not describe a mental state, though that kind of depression certainly might result from reading it.
Rather, the title flows from the axiom that when the country catches a cold, black America gets pneumonia. In this case, it means that while the rest of the country worries about sliding from recession into depression, much of black America is already there — and few are talking about it.
Pointing to an unemployment rate among young black males that’s consistently more than 30 percent, the report notes: “In any other population, this rate of unemployment would generate disturbing news headlines about an economic depression. But . . . there has been no bailout, no aid package, no rules changes to reverse this disaster.”
Citing international data, it notes that the United States typically has one of the highest Gini coefficients — a measure of inequality — among industrialized nations and that “when race is entered into the equation, the disparities increase.”
But who wants to talk about that amid the euphoria?
King would. He would get as misty-eyed as anyone over what will happen Tuesday, while still forcing the nation to see clearly the larger issues.
He would reprise his 1963 speech that talked of America giving blacks “a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ ” As his focus shifted from political to economic equality, he would use those words literally rather than metaphorically.
He would applaud Obama’s political elevation while saying:
Yes, but . . . what about the fact that black unemployment is always twice the white rate?
Yes, but . . . what about the fact that the poverty rate for black families remains more than double that of whites?
Yes, but . . . what about the wealth gap that sees white families’ net worth at 10 times that of black families, allowing them to more easily start businesses, buy homes, put their kids through college and further capitalize on advantages accumulated from the founding of the nation through the Jim Crow era?
Yes, but . . .
Between today’s birthday, Monday’s national holiday and Tuesday’s inauguration, King’s famous speech will flood the TV screen. So will images of Obama. Teary-eyed commentators, black and white, will talk about the moment they never thought they’d see.
Few will mention the “State of the Dream” report or why kids in the Fruit Belt start out so far behind those in Orchard Park. We don’t talk about that because one man’s election indicates that barriers have been eliminated and the playing field has been leveled.
All of which begs the question implicit in today’s report: If you start out behind, then proceed at the same pace, how do the gaps ever close?
That’s the question King would ask.
For a nation ready to party, maybe it’s a good thing he’s not here.
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