Happy Birthday Dr. King.

Like many Americans, I was profoundly moved by Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. I was only 10 years old when I heard it for the first time. My father was involved in the civil rights movement, and he always made it clear that slavery was the original sin of this country, and that racial discrimination was a stain on the national character. Only a fool (or a blind man) would fail to see the enormous strides we've made as a nation in this area since 1963. And only a fool or a blind man (or the many prominent republicans who are won't to opine that racism 'just isn't that big a deal' anymore) could fail to see that race is at the back of practically everything in this country. As a white man, this is clearly not my area of expertise. Yet I can't help but notice that the apologists for things like racial profiling, and the folks who insist that racism 'isn't that big a deal,' or that, most incredible of all, white men are now subject to discrimination (shut out as they are, poor babies, from the circles of power in business, politics, and the arts) all seem to be white guys. How do they come by this information? Who tells them that people of color no longer suffer discrimination of any kind in this country? I'm guessing their yard man. All sarcasm aside, I can't help but think that there's something unseemly about white people holding forth on this subject. Our complete lack of subjective experience in this area would seem to dictate that we keep our traps shut. Sort of the same thing as men deigning to sit in judgement on women and abortion (my favorite line for that subject is "it all comes down to when in the process you believe life begins, and I believe that it begins when men start minding their own fucking business"). So I'm going to leave you with Dr. King himself opining on the subject, and button my caucasian cakehole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk