[su_heading size=”17″]50 years after MLK, inequality still exists between races and people have become oblivious[/su_heading]
Stereotypes have riddled the world with unfairness, bias, and bigotry that remain unparalleled.
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. spoke freely about the unfairness of the racial inequality that had plagued America. Fifty years later, less than fifty percent of Americans believe that we have made substantial progress towards racial equality since that famous speech. Over half think that there is so much more to be done to achieve racial equality.
The gap that exists between black and white is not closed, it even shows to have widened in the past decades. One area where this racial gap has been shown to widen a particular amount is incarceration. In 1960, black men were five times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. In 2010, that was recorded at six times as likely. That’s right, it went up. In the words of former president Jimmy Carter, “I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted” to the overwhelming number of African-American men in prison.
The sad fact of our time is, though we claim to be a free country, a country where everyone can get the same rights and opportunities, whether you are a man or woman, white or black, or any other skin tone, we are so biased in our individual minds that equality has become impossible. There are still citizens that, when wronged by a faceless man, and faced with a white or black man to blame, they will choose the black man as the perpetrator.
Another way that racial inequality raises its head is through the economy. Economic gulfs have persisted between blacks and whites in the past few decades. According to Pew Research, blacks lagged behind whites in more than one way, including both median household income and household wealth. Blacks are nearly three times as likely as whites to be living in poverty.
Granted, the gaps have narrowed in some departments such as at-birth life expectancy, rates for high school completion and voter turnout. But those just aren’t enough to make up for the ways that racial gaps are turning into a figurative twin of the Grand Canyon.
Fifty years ago, the man we honor this week made a speech. A famous speech, where he publicly spoke of the day when black kids and white kids would play together, where we would look at one another and simply see fellow humans. Not marred by anything that our eyes tell us. Not marred by the stereotypes that our ancestors have written in something seemingly similar to stone.
I hope that our generation can take the much-needed steps forward to make that racial gap shrink. I think that fifty years trying is long enough; it’s time to make some actual changes. We just need to take that first leap, and realize that there is change to be made.
