I have made it an annual ritual to watch King’s 17-minute speech to honor his holiday and ponder the racial injustice that he so powerfully fought. I hope you will join me in this ritual and keep the holiday in its true spirit, which is so easily forgotten.
This year as I watched, I substituted the words 99% and 1% each time he said “Negro” and “white,” and it pretty much made sense as a prognostication of the history that is trending the majority of us into the 2nd rate citizen ranks that blacks in America have endured for 200+ years. — Yes, first only economically, but then who knows?
This speech is Art and Literature and Yoga all rolled into one. It is a call to greatness.
And to consider parallel the underlying issue with corporate influence on the nation leads me to share this second video in the same spirit. I have been stunned by the lack of a social conscience –or perhaps more accurately, an inability or unwillingness to do anything about the portrayal of women, and especially girls, in media. Rosario Dawson’s prediction here that our future leaders look like women and like people of color is a restatement of King’s great “dream.” The video below says it all with eloquence and purpose.