King's Dream

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This was the world that I felt like I grew up in, however, throughout my life I have come to learn that not everyone believes that way. My father is a black man and my mother is a beautiful blonde white woman. I never knew the feeling that one race of people was superior or inferior to another while I was growing up. My parents both defected from the ideas of their parents in that regard. Thus, I have come to look to the character of a man before pigeon-holing him into a certain category, but frankly, we all pre-judge people to some degree. It's a defense mechanism. When I see a man in a nice suit in a nice car I assume wealth and success, when really the car could be rented and he on the way to a wedding and wearing his best suit rather than a tuxedo. When I see a homeless person, honestly, my first thought is that they played the major role in their own decline simply because that is the norm. The problem comes in when we do not allow people to break out of the box that we have initially put them in, or we treat them with disdain or contempt because of our pre-judgments.

This as important now as it has ever been. Being a part of the black and white communities, I must point out a humungous step backward in regards to Civil Rights. King dreamed that one day we would not look on the appearance of a man to make our judgments of him (which as I pointed out, we all do to some degree). We (the black community) have complained for years that this has been done to us and yet here we are doing it to ourselves. Many are so excited about the idea of electing our first black President that they have decided to ignore the issues with his character. We don’t care that he supports the lifestyle of the homosexual which God calls abominable and perverse, rather than pointing them to the God who could heal their brokenness.

We don’t care that he is in favor of allowing the murder of nearly 4000 (yes, more people than I went to high school with) babies every day. Never mind that he does not believe in the inspiration of the Word of God, and that he believes there are “many” paths to God, I suppose. We just throw these things out because, well, he’s black. Is this what King died for? Remember that he was a minister of God first, and ask yourself whether he would have us to forsake God for what we call the “American Dream.” I think I would rather be a slave and have my Jesus than to have a job handed to me by someone who didn’t want to hire me and free health benefits en route to hell for forsaking God.

Are you voting for Obama because he’s black? Are you not voting for him because he’s black? Are you voting for McCain because his running mate is a woman? This is surely not the dream King had for us and ignoring character certainly won’t get us the right person for the job.