A legacy or a dream deferred?

I was not surprised to find that the least quoted portion of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech during the 1963 March on Washington was the following passage: "When the architects of our republic wrote the magniaficent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned … America has given the Negro people a bad check, which has come back marked 'insufficient funds …"\nSince the inception of Dr. King's birthday as a national holiday many Americans have flocked to non-profit community service organizations to show that once a year they are willing to help others who are not as fortunate as themselves. King's legacy draws elected officials to elaborate predominately Black churches and provides them with a platform to insert Afro-centric dialect into their speeches as the 100-plus member mass choir sing themselves out of their shoes and misguided church goers are brought to their feet on the broken promises of slick-worded politicians. The media bombards my television with images of Black, White and Asian first graders stumbling through a rendition of "We Shall Overcome," pictures of Dr. King sitting in reflective thought with finger to temple will pop up while a woman with an angelic-like voice talks about peace and harmony, and then the all too familiar sound bite of his "I Have a Dream" speech is played with the suggestion that all Americans remember this dream by doing their part to have it come into fruition.\nIronically, the day after Dr. King's real birth date, President Bush announced that he had filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in his "fundamentally flawed" decision to dismantle affirmative action practices at the University of Michigan and subsequently any government funded institution. This action along with the many others that have been taken since the Bush overthrow of the White House serves as impetus for my cynical and less than enthusiastic disposition about the week of activities that took place on campus. How does one celebrate the legacy of a man who gave his life for equal opportunity, but then attacks a system that was put in place to enact equal opportunity as opposed to just talking about it? Republican and Democratic conservatives or "Republi-crats" as I've heard them called, have convinced themselves that America has done enough to repair the damage of their forefathers, but how could that assessment be made when the graduation rate of Blacks who attend college in comparison to their White counterparts remains dismally low? \nI am fed up with empty rhetoric, broken promises and deferred dreams. Instead of simulation marches, gospel concerts, lectures and speeches, I spent the "day on" writing politicians that claim to serve me by demanding that they vote to preserve and increase the civil liberties of individuals who never entered the playing field on equal footing.