When confronted with thoughts on America's latent racism, I tend to remind whoever I'm talking to that these things take time. For some reason this is generally taken as racism itself -- "you're settling for the way people treat each other when you could be out there fixing it! right now! tomorrow!" -- which it isn't. It's common sense, based on historical perspective. Humans are inherently distrustful of the "Other" that you mention. This caution is biological (and exists for many good reasons), and unfortunately in the so-called civilized age it has manifested as racism and sexism and so on. So, these things take time. Defeating our own biology is a slow, painful process. Of course Dr. King's dream hasn't been realized everywhere, at all times, as an ideal. Only fools fail to understand that. But it's a different sort of fool who thinks that Rome was built in a day, or that reminding others that Rome wasn't built in a day is somehow akin to wishing Rome was a crater.
Absolutely, and I completely agree. That's why I mentioned the progress that I have seen, and the good that I have seen. To build on the discussion in your comment, I'm reading an interview right now with Dr. King published by Playboy in which this very issue comes up: King: No, I do not. I feel that the time is always right to do what is right. Where progress for the Negro in America is concerned, there is a tragic misconception of time among whites. They seem to cherish a strange, irrational notion that something in the very flow of time will cure all ills. In truth, time itself is only neutral. Increasingly, I feel that time has been used destructively by people of ill will much more than it has been used constructively by those of good will. If I were to select a timetable for the equalization of human rights, it would be the intent of the "all deliberate speed" specified in the historic 1954 Supreme Court decision. But what has happened? A Supreme Court decision was met, and balked, with utter defiance. Ten years later, in most areas of the South, less than one percent of the Negro children have been integrated in schools, and in some of the deepest South, not even one tenth of one percent. Approximately 25 percent of employable Negro youth, for another example, are presently unemployed. Though many would prefer not to, we must face the fact that progress for the Negro—to which white "moderates" like to point in justifying gradualism—has been relatively insignificant, particularly in terms of the Negro masses. What little progress has been made—and that includes the Civil Rights Act—has applied primarily to the middle-class Negro. Among the masses, especially in the Northern ghettos, the situation remains about the same, and for some it is worse. Do you think that his view is diametrically opposed to yours? Or do you think King is wishfully thinking here? how does all of this fit together? Thanks for your thoughts flagamuffin.But it's a different sort of fool who thinks that Rome was built in a day, or that reminding others that Rome wasn't built in a day is somehow akin to wishing Rome was a crater.
Playboy: Relatively few dispute the justness of the struggle to eradicate racial injustice, but many whites feel that the Negro should be more patient, that only the passage of time—perhaps generations—will bring about the sweeping changes he demands in traditional attitudes and customs. Do you think this is true?
Thanks for this great comment, and for your perspective. The history stuff was great as well (I'm a big history buff).