My daughter shared with me at the dinner table that “It’s like being an endangered species being one of two democrats in the room. Everybody’s lashing out at each other.”
She was talking about her English class, where one of her fellow students remarked that, “the only reason Barack Obama got elected was because the country wanted to make history.” His remark stemmed from a candid discussion about Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech. When I asked what her response was, she said she just didn’t feel like responding.
After listening to the speech, their assignment was to write down 3 dreams of their own. My daughter’s dream was that everyone be able to express their views openly. As I think about my childhood and imagine my parents’ through stories shared with me, I wonder why she must still shoot for that dream. And while we have enjoyed freedom of speech since 1791, why is it still not equitable?
We live in a world where the loudest, most powerful voices or even the majority of people in the room often overwhelm and conquer the others. We live in a world where the best ideas are often overlooked in favor of those that spring from wealth, power and the ability to speak into a live microphone.
But, I still dream.
I dream that motherless children from Haiti speak loudly through their photographs, that the peaceful calm voices of Gandhi, Mandela, Chavez and King resonate and persist through new voices, that my persistent emails and blogs promote thought, and that my daughter turns opposition into the opportunity to create cleverly-executed, verbal rebuttals.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday today and a national day of service on Monday, find an opportunity to serve your community in a way that will help us to see dreams fulfilled in the lives of others.