Let Freedom Dream

There is something fundamentally disconcerting about reading MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech in the context of West Baltimore. In a school that is 99% African-American, it is overwhelmingly evident that we have not yet reached the day when “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” Given the scenario, an observer wouldn’t expect a room full of black students to launch into a discussion of how racist America was “back then”… but they do. They talk about how our country “used to be” segregated and “in those days” Rosa Parks went to jail for refusing to go to the back of the bus, yet they fail to mention that the average Baltimore City bus stop all but displays a “Coloreds Only” sign declaring the transportational ghetto it has become.

And we have the nerve to discuss “urban reform.”

If you search for “reform” on Wikipedia, you find the following definition:

“Reform is generally distinguished from revolution. The latter moves toward basic or radical change; whereas reform may be no more than fine tuning, or at most redressing serious wrongs without altering the fundamentals of the system. Reform seeks to improve the system as it stands, never to overthrow it wholesale.”

In other words, reform suggests that a given change will improve an already functional entity in terms of quality, efficiency, etc. Reform is a tame word – it is non-threatening and, in many cases, optional. But the children of Baltimore City need more than mere reform. They deserve nothing short of a revolution.

Unlike reform, revolution cannot be legislated – it must be instigated. Sociologist Theda Skcopol defines revolution as the “rapid, basic transformation of society's state and class structures...accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below.” Like a wildfire, revolution bursts onto the scene and ravages the current system, starting as a small spark and quickly gaining enough momentum to consume even our most deeply-rooted traditions and beliefs.

When I consider this comparison between reform and revolution, I find that we too often attempt to equate these immensely dissimilar words. If anything, Reform is Revolution Lite – similar packaging, similar flavor, but no substance. In the world of soft drinks, a “light” version of the original proves beneficial, but not so in the cesspool of public education. While zero calories in a cola may effectively narrow your waistline, zero impact in a broken system only serves to widen the already abhorrent achievement gap in this country.

This reform mentality in an age of revolution reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King referred to as the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” In the 60s and 70s, African-American communities were ablaze with the promise of the civil rights movement. They cried out for revolution and demanded equality, but the systemic racism which governed the country would not be toppled overnight. As the slow burn ensued, this drug of gradualism dulled their once-bright spark to a smoldering flame of frustration and apathy.

West Baltimore embodies this death of a dream. It is a place which propagates the semblance of equality rather than the actual practice of it. Instead of simply letting school children starve, we offer them virtually inedible lunches that only the hungriest of students will even attempt to eat. To prevent thousands of West Baltimoreans from congregating angry and homeless on the street, we provide roach-infested, lead-painted government housing projects that make living below the poverty level just barely tolerable. As a result, these baseline governmental programs act as numbing agents to the very communities they are intended to empower, thus perpetuating – and even excusing – oppression. By pretending to follow-through with our promise of public education as the “great equalizer” for our nation’s children, we lull thousands of low-income families into a false sense of well-being and opportunity, quelling their rage and deceiving them into inadvertently sustaining the very systems which have tyrannized them for generations.

So what are we to do as proponents of social justice in a system of oppression? Do we remove ourselves from the process altogether, allowing these repugnant conditions to grow ever worse, in hopes of exposing the widespread inequality in our country and fostering a spark of rage strong enough to revolutionize an entire nation? Or do we continue to fight the good fight of gradualism, hoping that one day, through persistence and idealism, we will accumulate enough small victories to win this vast and complicated war?

Although there is no simple solution to be found, there is one simple reality that must be faced: unless we find a way to revolutionize, rather than “reform,” our country’s infrastructure, MLK’s words will continue to serve as indictment of rather than a tribute to this great and broken nation of ours.