Being “colorblind” isn’t about ignoring the sins of the past, or either the struggles or successes of black people (I don’t use “African American” unless they have dual citizenship in the US and Africa). It’s about saying the reason they struggled and the reasons their successes aren’t acknowledged more was based on something stupid to keep us divided. King wanted to unite us. My favorite line is about “little black boys and black girls joining hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”, which as they get older leads to holding…other things. It means seeing each other as people, judged “not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character”, my second favorite line. These are the two that always stick out to me as a white dude tied of watching the race war being fought by people whose goal seems to be to fight the race war rather than end racism, or at least make it irrelevant.
Of course, here’s the full speech, which I post every Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
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