Martin Luther King's Dream Hard to Be Fulfilled

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 27, 2003

Martin Luther King's Dream Hard to Be Fulfilled

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Forty full years have passed since Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech titled "I Have a Dream" on racial equality was published, however, five major "hidden discriminations" have made it hard for the "dream" to come true.

On August 23, thousands of American people gathered before Lincoln Memorial Hall in Washington to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the speech entitled "I Have a Dream" delivered by Martin Luther King Jr., a noted American leader of the blacks. On that day of 1963, Martin Luther King delivered his well-known speech, "I Have a Dream" here. Today, this man has gone, but his declaration remains, has Martin Luther King's dream on "racial equality" been realized? On this special day that is quite possible to arouse sympathy from descendants of minority nationalities in the United States, US human right organizations, mainstream media and politicians came out to make self-examinations and introspection.

Today 40 years after the publication of Martin Luther King's speech, the blacks and descendants of minority nationalities remain to be second-class citizens subject to different degrees of discrimination on political, economic and education problems. Compared with 40 years ago, the greatest difference lies in "concealed discriminations". These concealed discriminations are more dreadful. The New York Times and other mainstream media classified and analyzed this kind of invisible and unfathomable but actually existing concealed discriminations.

First kind of concealed discrimination: "political color spectacles"

Current US Secretary of State Colin Powell was once one of the US presidential candidates enjoying high expectations after the first Gulf War, the US most influential Newsweek, Time, New York Times and other mainstream media even publicized Powell as the first black president of the United States. However, what let the political analysts down was at the final moment when presidential candidates made their appearance one after another, Powell declared his withdrawal from rivalry on the ground of "his wife's opposition"! After a number of years, insiders disclosed that Powell quitted because both his wife and Powell himself were worried about racial "political color spectacles". It is not only the blacks that are subject to "political color spectacles", the lifetime of frustration of Chinese descendants in the American political arena is also a case in point. After the occurrence of the "September 11" incident in 2001, political discrimination against descents of the Arabic race has been on the increase.

Second kind of concealed discrimination: "invisible ceiling"

In the United States, promotion for the coloreds is much more difficult than for the whites, the proportion is very low for the coloreds to assume important and high-ranking posts. Of course I do not mean there is none, for example, in George W. Bush's team, Secretary of State Powell and National Security Advisor Rice are both blacks. These rare and precious figures serve as "evidence" proving that there is no racial discrimination in the United States. However, the overwhelming majority of US governments and leaders at various levels are whites, the great powers over US political, economic, military and cultural fields are held in the hands of the whites, this is an undeniable fact.

Third kind of concealed discrimination: "racial discrimination in school campus

Campus violence in the United States is known worldwide, it is little wonder that racial discrimination in the campus is also very serious. Almost no children of newly migrant Chinese being free from bullying in the campus. The reasons for this are: these children are small, weak and vulnerable to humiliation; Chinese families teach their children to be modest and forbearing in their childhood, to be obedient, keeping the rules, not belonging to the type of people "fond of bravery and fighting"; many of the Chinese students are excellent in studies and behavior, they are often commended in public by their teachers and so are "hated out of jealousy".

Fourth kind of concealed discrimination: Police and judicial departments have racial prejudice in law-enforcement

In the United States, the proportion of black people put in prisons or sentenced to death is obviously higher than the whites. In prisons in various states, about 47 percent of the prisoners are black people, and 16 percent prisoners are descents of Latin Americans. According to an investigation report published by the United Nations, in the United States, of those committed the same crime, the blacks and coloreds are often given punishments two to three times heavier than that meted out to the whites. Black people sentenced to death for killing the whites are four times more than the whites sentenced to death for killing black people.

In recent years, large-scale social conflicts triggered by US racial discrimination had often occurred in 1992, the large-scale racial conflict triggered in Los Angeles by a white policeman who beat up a black driver resulted in a toll of 59 deaths and 2,300 injuries; in October 1996, in Florida a white policeman killed a black driver, a riot ensued there which resulted in 15 injuries; in February 1999, a black man, named Diyaluo, was shot dead in New York by four white police officers, but the murderers were acquitted of a crime, hundreds of thousands of black people staged gigantic protest activities; in April 2001, a black youth in Cincinnati was shot dead by a white policeman simply for violation of traffic rules, which triggered large-scale racial violent conflicts; on June 17, 2003 in Benton of US Michigan State, a black motorcyclist died in a traffic accident as a result of the hot pursuit by a policeman, this incident caused riots in Benton, this forced Michigan State to send out a large police force for suppression and impose a curfew.

Fifth concealed discrimination: racial discrimination in daily life

A research jointly completed by professors of the Business School of Chicago University and the Massachusetts University of Science and Engineering shows that if the name in the resume of a job-seeker sounds like that of a white person, then he will get 50 percent higher opportunity of response from the employer than the name of a black person with the same qualification and experience.

In light of Boston Global Daily and Chicago Tribune employment ads, the professors sent out more than 5,000 resumes asking for jobs. They discovered that with an average 10 resumes for jobs sent out by the "white persons" they "created" could receive one response-either in the form of telephone, or letters or e-mails; whereas the "black" applicants with the same qualifications could receive only one response to every 15 curriculum vitae.

By People's Daily Online

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