I Have a Dream

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent 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, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable 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. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

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.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Delivered August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

With gratitude

[Note: I wrote this for an essay contest in Real Simple magazine.  The theme was: When did you first understand the meaning of love?  Disappointingly for me, I wasn't selected.  I hope you enjoy it anyway.]

When I was thirteen and my brother was eleven my parents sat us down and told us they needed to have a serious talk.  I burst into tears, certain they were about to announce their imminent divorce.  That wasn’t the case.  Instead, my mom and dad somberly explained that my granny and granddaddy weren’t doing so well living alone in their apartment in Richmond, Virginia and my parents and my dad’s brother and sister decided the best thing for them would be for them to relocate to our home in Denver.  My granddaddy would live with us and my granny would move into a nursing home a few miles from our house.  How did we feel about that, my parents wanted to know.  This question confused me.  How did I feel about this?  I felt terrible, of course.  This was primarily because of my granny.  She was in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease.  The medication she took to control her tremors had stolen her mind.  She alternated between violent shaking and fierce rigidity and her thoughts never made any sense.  I was completely terrified of her.  I heard stories about her loyalty, intelligence, and sensibility but that wasn’t the woman I ever knew.  I preferred how things were currently set-up, with them far, far away.

               My parents were both busy working professionals.  My mom was an extremely successful Health and Safety manager, routinely traveling to factories all over the country to conduct inspections.  My dad worked in upper management for a tech company.  My brother and I were latchkey kids, accustomed to coming home to an empty house, helping ourselves to fruit snacks and watching three hours of cartoons and working on homework.  My parents clearly loved the two of us and each other, but grand gestures of devotion were not something that fit into their extremely busy schedule.  We had dinner together every night and my parents faithfully attended all our school functions, but otherwise our lives were consumed with the day-to-day minutiae so common in young families.  I had no desire for an interloper to come in and disrupt our happy routine.

               At thirteen though, you have little control into how your household is run, and inevitably, my grandfather moved into the upstairs guest room.  His little space was sparsely decorated and he had to share a bathroom with my brother and me.  Almost immediately he started giving unwanted advice.  The way my mom cooked and kept the house, my brother’s poor school performance, and even on one memorable occasion, the way my dad performed the Heimlich maneuver, all fell under his critical eye.  I was the only one who escaped his constant reprimands, though I could never say why.  He couldn’t escape my constant annoyance however. From the way he left his dishes in the sink to the time he spent showering but most of all, the inordinate amount of time he spent with my granny was alternately a source of confusion and irritation.

               Every morning, almost regardless of weather conditions, my granddaddy went to visit my granny.  He would shower, neatly comb his hair and apply a splash of Old Spice.  In my memory, he wore the same outfit every day: a short-sleeved, blue button-down shirt tucked into black slacks and black dress shoes.  He wasn’t a flashy dresser, but he was always as neat as a pin.  He would shuffle to his maroon Oldsmobile and go to my granny’s nursing home, driving fifteen miles under the speed limit.  My parents privately discussed taking away his driver’s license, but didn’t have the heart, because to do so would keep him away from the only person he really wanted to see.  I’m not sure if my granny even knew who he was, but I can say with certainty that it didn’t matter to him.  He would go and sit with her, his days completely devoted to my granny’s well-being.  He would come home and admonish us for our shameful lack of visiting.  “She’d really like to see you,” he’d say.  I found this unlikely.  On one visit, she thought my brother was a girl, and then spent the rest of the visit mumbling semi-incoherently about the farm she grew up on.  I couldn’t understand that, even if it didn’t really mean anything to her, it would mean something to him.  In fact, I regarded his whole devotion to her with bafflement and bewilderment.  Why would he possibly want to just sit with her, day in and day out, instead of doing things and having fun?  He should be enjoying himself: going bowling, mingling at the senior center and all the other activities I assumed the elderly engaged in based on my exposure to popular television.  In fact, the only thing he wanted out of life was to live one day longer than my granny so that he would be able to take care of her until her end.

               My granddaddy was not an expressive man.  He was quiet, stern, and not overly affectionate.  His four older brothers all died young from the black lung that ravaged coal miners in the early part of the 20^th century.  He escaped the coal mines by joining the military and went to the Pacific during World War II.  He was separated from my granny and their kids for almost four years.  Once he came home he needed another year of treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Throughout this my granny was the family’s rock.  She worked, took care of the kids, and kept their house.  It’s fair to say that he never would have recovered from his war experience if not for my granny’s utter patience and devotion.  She was tough, independent, and at times sharp tongued.  My dad told me that she didn’t suffer fools gladly and he meant it as a compliment, not as a passive-aggressive insult.  When my granddaddy was in danger of slipping from the melancholic waters he always waded, to the deep ocean beyond it, it was she that grasped his arm and served as a life vest.  Her love for him may not have been tender or coddling but she showed it the best way that she knew how.

               When my granny was sick with Parkinson’s, and as it got worse, my granddaddy became tender to her in a way that he never had been when my father was a boy.  He was immensely protective of her, guarding her against the discomforts he could control.  He was finally able to repay the devotion that she had shown to him, and he never wavered for a moment.  Frankly, she probably didn’t know that he sat with her eight hours a day, took her to her meals, held her hand while she slept.  But he did it anyway because he loved her with every fiber of his being, even if he didn’t know how to express it with words.  As a teenager I didn’t understand it but I understand it now and am grateful that I was able to witness such a selfless display of love.  My granny died when she was 80 and I think that when she passed a part of my granddaddy went with her.  His health rapidly declined when he no longer had her to look after, although he lived for another five years, most of them confined to a nursing home bed with a diminishing degree of lucidity. 

               As an adult, with a husband of my own, what I saw my granddaddy do for my granny has been more important than any other act of love I’ve seen between two people.  Neither of them were perfect, but nevertheless showed the sacrifice one person will willingly make for someone they love, when the other person isn’t capable of walking down the path of life without help.  In the end that’s what a marriage, what any meaningful relationship, is about.  Sometimes it is as simple as holding a hand, sitting patiently by a bedside.  Sometimes all that matters is being there.

How to tell you are dealing with a man-child*

For the majority of us, being a grown-up is something that we arrive at by our mid- to late-twenties.  The route may at times be circuitous; we may backtrack or make detours (intentional and unintentional).  We aren't deposited at adulthood's doorstep all at once, but wake up to find that somehow, in bits and pieces, it's where we've arrived.  Being an adult doesn't necessarily mean being married** and having kids or obtaining a mortgage, although having all three usually leaves little choice.  A person can not have any and still be an adult; or they might have one or two and be a man-child.  The traits below will help give you more insight into that guy you're chatting up at the bar.

1.  He asks you to buy him a drink. This doesn't necessarily make him a man-child, but it does mean he's a complete douchebag. 

OK, now that we have the obvious out of the way, we can move on.

2.  He still derives some portion of support from his parents.  Honestly, this is just so, so lame.  It means that he hasn't figured out how to do the work so that he can support himself.  It's completely entitled, whether he's barely scraping by or if he's living large.  If mommy and daddy pay the bills, just walk away.

3.  His drink of choice is Pabst Blue Ribbon.  When it comes to drinking, we all have to start somewhere.  This might be rum and coke, something like Mike's Hard Lemonade, or cheap beer.  That's fine.  It's totally normal.  There's nothing wrong with occasionally drinking these things into adulthood.  But BEWARE the guy who deliberately drinks PBR night after night.  He drank PBR in high school, he drinks PBR now, and chances are good that a lot of other things about him haven't changed since he was seventeen.  Which brings me to my next point...

4.  The majority of his friends are people he went to high school with.  I think it's nice to stay in touch with friends from high school.  One or two might even qualify as close friends as you leave your twenties for your thirties.  But for you to stay tight with all the people you met in eighth grade algebra means that you probably haven't changed much.  And a lack of change means a lack of maturity.  And a lack of maturity means a man-child. 

5.  Cartoons.  Does he still love cartoons?  Adult Swim.  "Family Guy" (or any of Seth McFarlane's shows).  Even, God help me, "The Simpsons"?  The humor tends towards potty or stoner.  Sure it can be funny but do you really want to settle down with a guy that thinks fart jokes are the pinnacle of hilarity?  Even worse a lot of the humor is distincly anti-woman.  Do you really want a guy that thinks it's funny to make fun of women?  To insult their bodies or their reproductive capabilities?  I hope your answer is no.  Love of cartoons is a definitely man-child characteristic.

The last one, a lot of you will hate me for.  You'll find reason to argue.  But please hear me out.  I think I have a point.

6.  A disproportionate love of travel.  I love to travel.  I think traveling is an amazing privilege.  If you have the opportunity to travel someplace wonderful or new TAKE IT.  But here's the thing: for a lot of us, those chances assert themselves when we're in our early twenties.  We've finished college but aren't settled into a serious job.  Sometimes we're still getting help from our parents.  We don't have kids or a spouse.  It's a great time to take six weeks a travel through Southeast Asia or backpack through Europe for six months.  But you get to a point where you transition from child to adult and that means that you have a job with a certain amount of stability and responsibility and two weeks vacation.  If you meet a guy that's getting ready to move to Chile for six months and rock climb, you've met a man-child.  Unless his rich uncle died or he won the lottery, he can't afford to do that by himself.  He's getting some portion of support from his parents (please refer back to #2 for reference on why that's bad) and that's not a grown-up thing to do.

There's nothing wrong with loving to have fun.  There's nothing wrong with being irresponsible in your early twenties.  The above listed qualities are things that are unremarkable in a guy who's 23.  The problem arises when you approach 30 and you're not willing to evolve your identity.  It's LAME.  It's lame and pathetic and boring to act the same at 22 as you do at 29.  It is the hallmark of a person who is immature, and moreover, entitled.  So my single friends, I ask you: is that what you want?  Or do you want a guy who has goals and can spring for a twelve-pack of good beer?     

Also, maybe stop trying to chat up guys at bars.  By 29 or 30, the single guys hanging out at bars are almost certainly man-children.  Check out a local softball team, ski/outdoor club or similar. 

*Although the term "man-child" is typically applied to men, it can also apply to women.  I was unable to locate a comparable term for a female version of a man-child.

**I'm no expert, but I've been married almost seven years and I know many a man-child (NOT my husband).  I think I might have some perspective to offer.

Reasons I am glad I am no longer 13

1.  I no longer have to pretend that I like going to sleepovers.  I always hated them.  I can think of nothing I enjoyed less than staying someplace where I wouldn't reliably be able to brush my teeth, would have to stay awake when I was really tired, and watch scary movies.

2.  Now if an eight grade boy annoys me, I make threatening gestures from the safety of my car.  I was going to write something here (jokingly), but when I reread it I realized it made me sound genuinely psycho and felonious.  So...nothing to see here.

3.  No more lockers and the crappy shelves that never worked.  The adjustable locker shelves were inevitably disappointing and a waste of $7 which always came from my babysitting money.

4.  I can afford a good haircut.  This is self-explanatory.

5.  I am able to maintain a socially comfortable distance between me and everyone else.  Nowhere is this right more violated than middle school choir, where you are grouped at your teacher's whim and you always end up standing next to the strange girl with an extra pinky and weird boundaries.

6.  I never have to listen to Toni Braxton, Keith Sweat, R. Kelly or any other crappy mid-90s R&B singer.  Music from high school makes me nostalgic but music I liked in junior high causes profound embarrassment.  Let's all agree that the music we like at 13 shouldn't be held against us as adults.  EVER. 

7.  No more Laser Night.  Some of you who grew up in Lakewood may have memories of Laser Night, the teen night at the local rec center.  It was a place where teens could hang out on Saturday night, listen to music and drink contraband alcohol, make out and get in fights.  At $7 an hour, the staff was only marginally interested in corralling problem 13-year-olds.  I think it would have taken a knife fight to move a lot of them.  Also, I caught mono from sharing sodas there.  (NOT from making out...I believe I've mentioned my prairie girl dress, which effectively blocked any making out until college.)

8.  No more piercing pressure.  I coveted a bellybutton piercing starting at 13 and no amount of begging would convince my parents to allow me to get one.  So, because I was astonishingly stupid I decided I would do it myself with a safety pin.  It took roughly five hours and lasted two days before I decided that wasn't necessarily my best idea ever.  I got it pierced for real at 18 and kept it until I got pregnant with Bear.  I have no desire to put it back in.  I'm almost 30.  Also, I've had two kids and that does weird things to your bellybutton.

9.  No more bus.  Can you believe I used to want to go to the mall so badly that I was actually willing to take a bus?  Now I try to avoid the mall but when I do need go, you know how I get there?  IN MY CAR.

10.  I don't have to participate in mandatory gym class.  I'm not opposed to exercise.  I'm opposed to group exercise with people infinitely more coordinated than I am with a gym teacher carrying an extra 80 pounds. 

11.  No one beats me up.  Ever.  So, I actually never got beat up ever anyway.  But now it definitely never happens.  Do you know who gets beat up at 30?  Me neither, but no one I hang out with.

12.  Acne is different now.  If I have a gross pimple these days people just ignore it.  This also applies to farts.

13.  Bad behavior is no longer cool.  If doing drugs or engaging in deviant behavior is still your "thing" you are now a social burnout and you don't live in my neighborhood.  And I like that very much.