Pride News Canada's Leader In African Canadian & Caribbean News, Views & Lifestyle
By Yvonne Sam
Social and Political Commentator
Last Wednesday, on April 4, the nation of the United States of America marked 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
On the day that King was assassinated he was in Memphis, fighting for fair wages for the sanitation workers. Now fast forward 50 years later, in the same America where he was killed, and the same America where he openly voiced his dream for the world to hear, nothing much has happened.
We cannot hide, society is still plagued by the racial divide. Blacks still continue to chase the dream. More than half of African American workers earn below $15.00 per hour, and income equality has increased.
Superimposed on this already troubling situation is the fact that today, white supremacists are boldly, and with marked frequency, espousing their views. Racism remains an omnipresent force, deeply implicated in every aspect of Black lives.
Dr. King is not alive today, as he would be shocked, if not stunned, at how little has changed, in terms of Blacks’ encounters with the criminal justice system and law enforcement community.
MLK’s fight was never just about race or just about ending certain practices and racial entitlements.
Plainly put and factually stated, Dr. King was teaching us that racialism unites us to much of reality, including the reality of our potential as individuals.
It is deeply lamentable that 50 years after his death, we still need leaders to remind us of this fact, and worse yet, is the fact that none among our current crop of leaders seems capable of filling that role. So we cannot stop for we are still a way off from the mountain top.
Dr. King’s dream, or so it seems, may soon be a nightmare, attainment of his legacy still an illusion. His mountaintop still appears in sight, but we won’ t get there without a fight.
This anniversary should serve as a sombre reminder that the fate of the ideals for which he died, lies in the very hands of the very people for whom he died.
