When Will We Wake Up From the "Dream?"

Every year we celebrate the virtues of Martin Luther King. We celebrate the “Dream.”

I wonder if the “dream” is nothing but a palpable illusion we use to trick ourselves into believing in a democracy that does not truly exist. The “dream” is, sadly, taking us away from the truth. The “dream” is not allowing us to acknowledge that we still manipulate the labor of the poor, segregate schools, disenfranchise the poor and deny our own moral impotency. The “dream” is becoming a familiar myth in progress: a celebration of self-awarded respite from concern for those who continue to suffer and from those who continue to be oppressed in “the land of the free.” 

Three years ago, a group of interfaith torchbearers met in Tel Aviv to commiserate about peace and justice. It was lead by the son of Martin Luther King, Jr. Since then, I have noticed, progress has not picked up speed and moved at rates un-”dreamed” of. American children still go to bed hungry and teeth still rot in the ghetto. 

The “dream” is more of a hallucination. It is like mental illness. There is no basis for optimism. Rage surged in Martin’s time and continues during our time. Rage is more technologically advanced and it has grown worse. Twisted and contorted, the lives of Latinos, Palestinians, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, gender oppressed women, the homeless, the hopeless people of color - all these lives have grown only more intricately twisted into a nightmare that we continue to deny and give proof to the fact that “time does not heal all things” but only makes more of us passive, tranquil and invulnerable observers of the numerous scenes of pain. 

Omid Safi, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, summed it up best when he said, “It is time to stop and ponder not who killed Martin, but who kills the Dream now. A bullet killed Martin on April 4, 1968. We kill Martin every day, we kill the Dream now, when we stand aside and look, when we ignore the prophetic challenge that this beautiful liberated man of God posed to us.”

We as Americans have the most powerful military in the world, a dominant and pervasive culture, some of the best universities, and still one of the most creative economies. As Spiderman once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." This day, every day, if we want to honor Martin, let us realize that: "Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

Next year, same time and hopefully significant change in the moral state of mankind

Khalilah Sabra

Muslim American Society

Immigrant Justice Center, Raleigh, NC