Fulfilling Martin Luther King's Dream

This is my response to this article by Dawn Turner Trice, "Racial divide forms nation of strangers," in the Chicago Tribune on June 2, 2008. Here is the link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/columnists/chi-trice-02-jun02...

Dear Ms. Trice,

I have read some of your columns on race. Does a person's race matter to you? Please answer this question before you read the rest of my e-mail.

I especially want to comment on your column, "Racial divide forms nation of strangers." I just graduated from Warren Township High School in Gurnee. Warren Township High School is one of the most racially and economically diverse schools in the state. Not only does the school have students of many different races, but we even have students from many different countries. Let me tell you, there is no racial divide among the students. Most of the students do not care about race because race does not matter. Either you are an American or you are not.
I have close friends of different races. In fact for most of my life, my best friend was a different race than me. My relationship with my friends of different races is as personal and close as my relationships with friends of the same race as me. This is because neither me nor my friends care about race. This is the case with most of the students at Warren.
I have had serious verbal fights and debates over race and politics with people who are of a different race than me. Some of those people are my friends and some of those people have become my friends.
Let me reiterate, that this apathy about race is widespread among most of the young people I know. We even joke around and make non-politically correct jokes about each other, all in good taste.
So I find it wrong that you write, "the majority of us indeed are living in a dream world."
Now I know that I am only referring to young people around my age. So maybe this is a sign that in the near future, that any racial problems that exist today will not be as prevalent in the future. Yet, there are many adults that I know who also do not care about race.

It is the adults that keep bringing up race and keep clinging to the past that are causing the majority of racial problems in society. Yes, there are outright racists still in America. But I do believe that the number of outright racists is few and is diminishing every day due to death and societal pressure.
History is important. It is vital that every American for the entire future of America knows about American society when slavery and racism was prevalent. But we can not do anything about the past. What we can do is break away from it because the past does not dictate our present actions. We are where we are because of the past. But we can stop dumb and bad tendencies, such as placing importance on race.
You start your article with some history of your father-in-law. Then you write about your life, which shows the progress we have made as a nation. But still, in the end you come to the conclusion that "we are a nation of strangers." This sequence of events demonstrates that according to you we now accept each other but we do not embrace each other.
From what I wrote above this is not the case with young people. The reason is because we do not care about what color your skin is, just as MLK wanted. We care about whether you are an American--a person who believes in freedom, justice, and equality. And we judge you by your character. This is the solution to the racial divide, as MLK figured out 45 years ago.

For all the adults who think there is a racial divide and feel like they are strangers with people of different races, do this: stop caring about what race someone is. It does not matter that for over 200 years, a person's race affected their life greatly. Let us get over the horrible history of race relations in our country. Move on. If you want to have a deep conversation about politics and race with someone, then just do it. If you want to sit on the lunchroom table where there are a bunch of kids a different race than you, then just do it. If you want to attend a church full of people of a different race than you, then just do it. The only thing holding back people from doing all this is the old, outdated, racist notion that race matters.

Only when we as a society come to believe that race does not matter, will we accomplish MLK's dream. So once we set aside race where it belongs--in the past--we can truly live in that dream world, where many young people already live.

By the way, I am not stating that race does not exist. There are cultural differences between people of different races. But those minor differences should be overcome by the overwhelming similarity that we all share--the fact that we are all Americans.

As you may have noticed I did not mention any specific races in any of my examples, nor did I mention my race. I did this not because I am afraid of political correctness. I did this just to emphasize that race does not matter. The only use there would be for you (or anyone else) to know my race is to make a racist judgment (favorable or unfavorable, but still racist) based on it (I am not assuming that you want to know my race, I am just giving an example of the unimportance of race). I, like everyone else, want to be judged as an individual.

Thank you for taking time to read this and I am looking forward to a response.

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