Blog Assignment #3:
For more than 20 years, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday has been celebrated as a national holiday in the United States.
In 1963, King made one of his most famous speeches; the "I have a Dream Speech," delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. During that speech, Dr. King spoke of his dream that people would be judged on the content of their character, and that people of all races, religions, etc., would be able to exist peacefully.
It's been nearly 45 years since Dr. King made that speech. However, there are still parts of his dream that remained unfulfilled.
Your assignment: Discuss the parts of Dr. King's dream that remain unfulfilled (hasn't happened yet). Explain why you think those things haven't happened, and what we can do to acheive them.
If you need to review Dr. King's speech, here's a link, which also provides audio as well.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
Due Date is Thursday for WJPS students. QHST, you're more than welcome to post here as well.
Thanks!
13 comments:
One dream that always is going to remain unfulfilled is race. Mostly we really can't do anything about it. We the people can't change everyones mind saying you should like white people. But there is one way if we start talking to other race and we can start being friends with them the people they'll see that the are the same way you are.
Parth Patel
The parts of Dr.King's speech that have not been fulfilled are the parts that say the african Americans are not treated with the same amount of respect as the other races. They still dont make as much as the caucasian race does. the caucasian race also gets treated with more respect no matter where or what the circumstance.
Good points, Parth. How can we increase communication among various racial, and ethnic groups?
Martin Luther King was a great man because he did a lot of good stuff to prevent from different civil rights movement. His speech was useful to say and he made a lot of things that was accomplish. We can increase communication among various racial and ethnic groups by having people talk about the civil rights movement and to make people have programs like helping people in the racial groups or something. Some parts of Martin Luther King was great and good but some of the parts were non understoodful.. xD
cyaaa... :]]
Dr. King was an incredible visionary and it ‘s terribly sad that, even today, with all our marvelous advancements and supposedly free society, it is still accepted that people of color are being oppressed. Vishnell brings up a good point when she talks about Sean Bell, the African American gentleman who was shot upwards of fifty times on the night before his wedding. And the fact that more than half of the officers firing at him were men of color is even more distressing, to me anyway. Racism is so ground into us in this society that even African American officers and Hispanic officers are employ racial profiling, a tactic (which, they say, is no longer used) where they target a specific race as the "bad race", or the race most likely to be involved in a crime and target individuals who look like that particular race. In NYC, the targeted race is generally Blacks and Hispanics.
However, I must disagree with Mr. Patel when he says that we really can't do anything about it. There is so much we can do! And, Mr. Patel, you are so on point when you say that if members of each race started being friends and talking and accepting one another we could end this racism! I am a member of an education advocacy group (www.iCOPE.org) that strives to undo the racism that goes on in public schools in NYC and, through that (by halting racism where it begins and promoting acceptance and understanding and tolerance) we hope to put an end to all racism. (Race, really, doesn’t actually exist. It was made up in order to negate culture, which brings people together, and divide people. Divisions breed misunderstandings and eventually hatred, which brings us to oppression of one or more particular “races”.)
Stopping racism is a lofty goal, I know, and it will not happen overnight or possibly even within our lifetime, but it is something extremely worthy to work towards. And you and your classmates can also try to end racism by doing exactly what you said to do, Mr. Patel! Be inclusive and learn about other cultures! And not just during "Black History Month" and "Multicultural Day". Every month should be black history month and every day should be multicultural day. We should be thinking about these things and learning about cultures different form our own every single day! Race is such a ridiculous divider. We need to be concentrating on culture to unite ourselves and create a unique solidarity that I don't think anyone else has. We have such a unique society, it's sad that we deliberately divide ourselves like this.
I don't think that this, what we have today, is really what Dr. King had in mind when he spoke about his Dream. Picking one month out of the year to retrospect on extraordinary black figures and having a multicultural day (most of which do not actually represent all the individual cultures of the student body) every once in a while and then accepting blatant racism and segregation the rest of the year would probably have just about broken his heart. We have taken his words and made them into a fancy parade that we take out once a year to make is seem like we’re doing something and then forget about. If we want real equality, if we really want to make Dr. King proud and to really celebrate his vision and memory, we need to celebrate everyone every day. We need to bring more culture into the classroom so as to eliminate misconceptions about the various cultures that we claim to embrace in our modern little society and create a solidarity of diverse peoples as unique as the country we share!
We need to stop making derogatory remarks about races that differ from our own and stop using them in our arts and music just for their shock value (seriously, it has worn off already). We need to be educated, patient, and accepting. We need to spread the words of Dr. King. We need to pull him out of “Black History Month,” because he really seems to be stuck in there, and bring his Dream into proper focus in our everyday lives. If we want real, tangible change, we cannot simply read a two-page autobiography of a famous black person once a year, we have to live what we say and live Dr. King’s words. As Dr. Maya Angelou says, “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
Thank you for your time, please consider what I've said here and consider what a truly inclusive, loving society would mean to all of us.
- joanna vogel, QHST Senior
“If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.” – Maya Angelou
"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends." - Dr. Maya Angelou (Posted by joanna vogel)
I loved what Vishnell said about how "It’s sad because even in 2007 we question racism." I believe that everyone is a little bit racist, whether or not they want to believe or admit it. I've seen many people claim that they are not racist, yet they make disgusted looks at another race, or say distasteful comments about people they don't know based on their looks. I want whoever reads this to dig down deep inside themselves and remember a time when someone else was being racist towards them and when they were racist to someone else. I think it takes a brave person to admit to being racist.
I take the bus to school every morning and one bus I take has a large black population that also uses it. I'm not black and I remember the first day I stepped into the bus and looked for a seat. A woman holding her bag, put it down next to her on a empty seat. Two old ladies glared at me and a teenage boy gave me a dirty look. I could feel every eye piercing my jacket and I hated it. There's such hatred between races that it becomes hard to look past the hatred and to accept one another.
I sit at a very colorful table during lunch. Two of my friends are white, two are black and one is hispanic. We all get along fine because we looked past the color of our skin and accpet one another for our personalities. The rest of the lunchroom however is not as colorful as us. Most kids tend to stay amongst their own group, which eight times out of ten is with their own race. There's nothing wrong with sitting with people of your own race, but when you don't accept someone else of a different race you become no better than someone who is openly racist.
I hope my post isn't too long and I hope that whoever reads this takes the time to think about what I've said. Race is a sticky topic, but we're the next generation, we should be able to put a stop to it.
okay mr tesler...i believe that dr martin luther king had thingds that are pointing out that are not unfilled! i read that ``negros is still languished in the corners of the american society and finds himself an exile of his own land''that still has not been fullfilled because whem im in my neigborhood and i see people that are just staying on the coner the cops come and kick them out. i belive that they are just assuming stuff they are not taking the time to ask them why are you staying there. dr king was stating that he wants it to be known you cant exile a man from his own land.
``we will never be satified as long as a negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutally''
that definitly is still becoming a problem not to long ago their was a film of about 8 cops on one black man and because of what nothing!
i believe that we have to do something to get dr kings dreams fulfilled thats what he asked for so thats what we should do and its not that hard if you look at the person as a human and not a BLACK PERSON!!!xD
I agree with what parth and julia said. One dream that Martin Luther King Jr will always remain unfufilled is race. It isnt right that an Arican American can be more safisticated then a caucasion but the African American would normally still be looked bad upon, just because of skin color. If something bad happens like a robbery and an African American is at fault people would normally say "typical" but if its a caucasion some people are actually in shock! I think it doesnt matter what you say it matters what you do. "Actions speak louder then words" The reasone for alot of rasist acts would probarbly be from stereotypes. If we didnt forget our passed...but understood it, learned from it, and most of all excepted it we could probarbly move on and form brotherhood. but because a lot of people still have rage inside them, hatetred, and grudges noone can move on from it. If someone takes a stand like Martin Luther King Jr did it wont change the minds of everyone in the world, but there would be a diffrence. and changing the mind of one person...just ONE! is a pretty amazing start.
-Elena Brandes
One of the unfulfilled dream of Dr. Martin Luther King's speech is people being judged by others. Over the past 45 years no one has overcome this speech. In other words nobody has practiced the speech of judgment with others. We see judgment everywhere in schools, streets, television and even in the government. For example some African Americans are still not treated fairly. Sometimes you dont even have to be African American, you could be any race but you'll still get judged by others. I think everybody should practice the speech of judgment because what we are provoing is that we never cared that some brave man who's Martin Luther King gave a speech about judgment. We just ignored it and thats not right.
Mr.Tesler.... Iam totallyimpressed with the online disscussion you allowed my class to be apart of. As a teacher one thing that most appeals to me in this online approach is the elimination of over reaction, and real listening. Responding to previous comments and building on eachothers thoughts is where the real "learning" comes in. Thanks again for the opportunity.
I agree with Mr. Brown. This has really been a great experience. I hope the one thing you take away from it is the importance of listening to each other, and learning from each other.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a dream...." speech was very moving, but the fact is that one of his dreams is still unfulfilled. That dream is racism. No matter what that's going to be an unfulfilled dream of Dr. King. There's racism everywhere all the time. A majority of caucasians get more repact than hispanic or black people. A good example was in one of the other responses you recieved the one about Sean Bell. Half of the officers that fired at him were of black race. I found that just not right. For a fact Dr. King's dream is still unfulfilled.
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