I Have A Nightmare

I think now, and come Tuesday, we may well have missed the whole point altogether – and all of us together - of this long weekend for which we have the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to thank for having a birthday so we could have a national holiday so that we could all have an extra day off.

Here’s proof. 

Can you complete King’s most famous line, the most oft quoted passage, the most remembered statement that in truth summarized his entire life, a one-liner from his 1963 “dream” speech?

Which from the following would you say provides the final flourish?

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by . . .

• ‘their refusal to move to the back of the bus;’
• ‘their march on Washington;’
• ‘their cause célèbre to which they gave their lives.’

The answer is: ‘none of the above.’ 

Rather this is how King finished that sentence and in affect signed his name, proving to be his signature statement, indicating unmistakably that for which he stood; that which prompted all his actions; the source, the fountainhead, the headwaters from which emanated and dispersed and flowed all for which he was and is remembered; and that for which he would ultimately pay with his life: 

“the content of their character.”

It is so important here it is again:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Underline (three times), highlight and put in all caps those last five words.

It is indeed a grave danger, suggests Fredrick Harris of the Washington Post, should Obama forget the dream King espoused when in his inaugural speech on Monday - the day that converges with King’s birthday – the president does not put the emphasis on the right syllable of King’s life even as he places his hand on King’s Bible. 

But it is exactly here that Harris himself has fallen victim to an agendized-answer as to what King would say were he to give the inaugural speech and not just simply be symbolically present in his Bible upon which Obama will swear.

After all, Harris is Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University so it somewhat behooves him to remind President Obama that eliminating poverty and race to which end King lived, and died, should be that for which Obama should take a more active role.

But that is to have made a critical error.

While it is true that King called for an end of racism that 28th day of August,1963; and yes, 200,000 civil rights supporters gathered there before the Lincoln Memorial listening to King’s 17-minute speech which message and crowd constituted a defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement; yet to subscribe to the notion that therein lies the explanation and exclamation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is to have just headlined the whole reason why America is culturally at war with itself. 

It was an emphasis upon character after – and first of - all, not upon conduct, that chiefly qualified King as a spokesperson and champion when he issued his clarion call from those concrete steps.

That’s because it is character that drives (or should) conviction; integrity that fuels initiative; spine that prevents spin.

Character is the syllable upon which the emphasis belongs, not conduct.

We do major damage to our collective psyche to get it reversed.

Spin-cycle is what describes America’s angst over Lance Armstrong for example who serves as just the most recent illustration among many of a country in search of a success story – an unbelievable hero to believe in only to find him unbelievable after all.

Character, as it turns out, didn’t make Armstrong’s wheels go round. 

Neither does character drive Hollywood, which industry can splatter the silver screen with the blood of Leatherface’s chainsaw victims; and neither does character describe theater-goers who can make “Texas Chainsaw 3-D” number one in the box office this past weekend, almost exactly – and only - 30 days since the massacre in the blood-splattered halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Anytime we get the proverbial cart before the horse; or elite – and elitist - cyclist on a bike; or filth on the screen or stage and people willing to pay to see it or them; or person in any level of office or position; or even someone unknown; or an entire country, who or which fails to be fueled by the kind of fortitude that comes from character, then he or she or it while popular, occupying a place of power, or accompanied by an ever-faithful following of frenzied fans will still, without character, discover certain collapse.

It’s just a matter of time.