Friday, April 04, 2008
 | Current mood:  contemplative Category: News and Politics Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King jr’s assassination. Honestly, until this year I hadn’t really thought much about his death, his legacy or what life might be like had this charismatic leader not murdered. Over the last few years I have become personally and acutely aware of the racial, gender and economic divides that permeate american society today. Divides that King, Malcolm X, Kennedy and so many other great leaders were fighting to bridge. I am a white woman who has lived in primarily minority communities for the last five or so years of my life. I have lived in black neighborhoods, puerto rican neighborhoods, working class neighborhoods, drug infested "ghetto" neighborhoods...pretty much all over. The last three years of my life I have worked in schools where all of the students are african american. Today, as I read one of King’s speeches to my 7th grade african american girls, I was struck by how segregated this great melting pot we live in is and how that segregation breeds inequality. Forty years ago King was on the brink of truly dramatic world change...his work, his dream, his passion, takes time to complete. It is not an overnight journey....but I can not help but feel very sad today as I see how separate and unequal things still are in housing, education, jobs, transportation, access to decent grocery stores, simple things like that....and I wonder what to do about it all. I am one person...a white woman...in a profession dominated by white women... Of course we have made strides, legal segregation is ended but left in its wake is defacto segregation so really what is the difference? Why are schools in Chicago still so intensely segregated? Why are the neighborhoods so separated from each other? I told my students today that there is a whole community of people in the city of Chicago that are polish. They speak polish....if you visit their neighborhood you may not be able to talk to people because they only speak polish in some areas. They were DUMBFOUNDED. Had no idea that there were areas like that within their great city....i think next i need to tell them about greektown and china town (chinatown incidentally is literally ten blocks from my school....but i digress....) Racism and discrimination are still very much alive and well in american society. Sometimes it is blatant and sometimes it is subversive, but it is still there. How does a culture that is blend of other cultures define itself and accept one another while still striving for a united state? It seems like an endless conundrum that hurts my heart and head to think about too deeply.. |
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