WPCNR Daily Mirror. By John F. Bailey. January 19, 2004: This morning at 8 A.M. at the Slater Center, the man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be remembered. I am not that familiar with Dr. King’s life, but I do know that he, like other great men of America who have their days, Dr. King’s name stands for a value that America holds dear.
George Washington stands for honesty.
Abraham Lincoln for freedom
Columbus for discovery,
Dr. King’s name stands for Opportunity.
When I think of Dr. King, I think of the Selma marches, I think of Birmingham, I think of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he lead the African-American community in demonstrations asking for the right of equal opportunity in America: a seat on a bus wherever they chose; a restaurant or hotel of their choice; the right to apply for a job without being turned down because you were black. Blatant in-your-face- discrimination was publicized by Dr. King and America was shown it was not right.
Today, subtle discrimination denying equal opportunity, and guaranteeing less opportunity are the evils that Dr. King, had he lived would be attacking today.
When I write those sentences I just wrote, it seems incomprehensible to me that someone would deny another person that. When you think about it, it is an awful situation to think about. In the 36 years since Dr. King was murdered, the nation has come a long way in my opinion, in breaking down the visible barriers of racism based on creed and the color of one’s skin.
Today the barriers to Equal Opportunity are more subtle and just as effective.
Barriers still exist: in the classroom. There is reluctance to deliver quality education to the black and Hispanic populations in America today. The only reason there is a concentrated effort to do so are the state achievement tests which showed the shame of our education programs for minorities.
There is the perception that because your name and skin color sound Spanish or Jamaican, or Dominican, or you look that way you automatically need help and are slow-tracked into remedial classes; the inclusion of the slower (read minority) children in one corner of a classroom so you can deal with the “problem children” all at once; the notion that it is all right to use millions of dollars meant for rebuilding poor performing schools with better buildings, better teachers, but is used to create educational bureaucracies for the politically connected instead.
In the last ten years the products of this subtle unequal educational opportunity have been well documented and given a name: The Achievement Gap. The educational establishment invests millions in studies to fine solutions to it and they have learned a lot about it. It takes more School District heads to stand up and say like Dr. King, “we simply are not going to educate half the population any more.”
The lagging behind of the African-American youth is blamed on the home and family breakdown. Well then you have to bring more attention to the family unit and those youngsters’ home environment, putting the education in there. It’s expensive but if you want to solve the Achievement Gap you have to do that.
The argument that you have to speak English in the schools and learn it is obvious racial superiority. Of course you have to learn to speak English, but really, Bilingual education is how we English-speakers learn another language….why not have teachers educate Hispanic background children in their own language with English simultaneously? It is proven to work. It is time to stop the subtle prejudice that we do not want Hispanic children in our towns and schools because they are too hard to educate and will cost us money to do that. They are children, you simply cannot throw them away because they are Hispanic.
That’s discrimination I think Dr. Martin Luther King would find hard to take. He would also bristle at lowering standards for minorities, because he would see right through that argument, saying well when are you going to raise the standards for my people because you don’t have to work any harder at educating them if you do not raise your expectations for them.
I think Dr. King would look around today and appreciate how Blacks and Whites, Hispanics and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and other races mingle together in today’s America.
I think he would observe we are all becoming more appreciative and respectful of each other. But, I do not think he would like today’s buzz word :”diversity” and priding ourselves on diversity. He would say that’s nice, but let’s keep our eye on the prize, to borrow the wonderful motto of the White Plains Department of Public Safety, let us treat all with integrity, professionalism, respect, and to that add opportunity.
